#they’re a local critter so if I were a critter I’d probably be a local one right?

[givemebishies]

Just set a new pfp for the first time in years lol I feel like I just got a new haircut and idk if I like it yet 👀

[niqhtlord01]

Humans are weird: ET stay home (Human Perspective)

( Please come see me on my new patreon and support me for early access to stories and personal story requests :D https://www.patreon.com/NiqhtLord Every bit helps)   (For those who may be confused, this is the telling of the same story from Humans are weird: ET Stay Home, but this one tells it from the human side of it. For the alien perspective please read the previous entry :) ) 

Broadcaster: This is Nine News Now and I’m your host Gabriel Thompson.

GT: Our top story tonight, local outback hunter Hudson White has come forward with claims that they have been abducted by aliens and taken off world for experimentation.

GT: We have Mr. White here tonight to tell us his side of the story on this interstellar encounter.

*Camera pans left to see Hudson sitting opposite Gabriel*

GT: Thank you for joining us tonight.

HW: My pleasure.

GT: Mr. White I’m going to cut right to the chase and ask you what many of our viewers are already thinking.

GT: Is your story just another crackpot tale?

HW: Listen darling; if I’d been in their shoes right now I’d be saying the exact same thing.

HW: But the real crazy thing here is that it did happen and it happened to me; and I’ve got the story and proof to prove it.

GT: Now before we go into your story, it was reported that local farmers found you out in the wilds of the outback after a severe sandstorm swept through the county.

GT: You were admitted to a local hospital were the doctors diagnosed you with critical dehydration and malnutrition.

HW: That’s right, I was up on their ship in space for what felt like days and I wasn’t about to start putting any of their alien bits inside my body.

GT: Is it not possible that you just became lost in the sandstorm and the experiences you claim to have gone through were nothing more than hallucinations?

HW: I spent me whole life out there in the outback.

HW: I get paid to hunt down wild packs of animals attacking farms, spending weeks at a time with nothing but a flask of whiskey and stale bread.

HW: You’ve got an iron pair accusing me of going wobbly over a little sandstorm.

GT: Why don’t you tell us your story then; start from the beginning.

HW: I was hired by the Befred Farm to track down a pack of dingoes that’d been attacking them every night for about three weeks.

HW: These critters would come in the dead of night and kill a sheep or cattle before buggering out.

HW: When I got to the farm I got lucky since the tracks from the last attack were still there. So I started following them back to their den where I hoped to catch them off guard.

HW: I got a few miles out when the weather shifted and a massive sandstorm started blowing in. Could barely see a few feet in front of me and before I knew it the tracks were gone. So I started heading back to the farm and try to catch the dingoes at night.

GT: And this is when you encountered the aliens?

HW: You better believe it.

HW: I’d made it half way back to the farm when it happened. The sandstorm was roaring all around me and even with me goggles on I couldn’t see far ahead of me. Then they came out of the storm like a god damn horror movie.

GT: Can you describe then?

HW: Not entirely.

HW: There were about four of them, each wearing a suit like you see astronauts wear with those big shiny head bits that blocked the sun.

HW: They were skinny things though. I mistook the buggers for some dried up trees at first until the front one started shooting at me.

GT: The aliens attacked you? Did you do anything to provoke them?

HW: Crikey, no!

HW: We just bumped into each other in the storm like blokes at a bus stop and the next thing I know they’re shooting at me.

GT: Were you hit?

HW: Nah; the one in the front must’ve been an ankle biter since he couldn’t hit the side of a mountain.

GT: What did you do in response?

HW: I swung up my elephant gun and shot them back.

GT: You what?!

HW: We just met and they’re already blasting? I took offense to that; but they were probably surprised so I just clipped them in the arm.

HW: Wasn’t fast enough on reload though and the bloke behind that front one pulled out another tinker and got me good in the chest.

GT: If you were shot in the chest how are you alive?

HW: No idea.

HW: I got hit and it felt like my soul was leaving my body, but the next thing I know I’m waking up in their ship with one of them leaning over me like they’re about to cut me up.

GT: Sounds like it was a stunner of some kind.

HW: A what?

GT: Something that knocks you out but doesn’t kill you, like in Star Trek.

HW: Ah, that sounds about right.

HW: Loved that as a kid; them sheila’s looked good in red.

GT: So these aliens stunned you and took you onboard their ship. What happened then?

HW: This tiny ship I was on hooked up with their big ship in space and they were in the middle of moving me to it when I broke free.

GT: These aliens didn’t take away your weapon?

HW: Oh they got me gun, but they missed the knife I keep under my shirt. Soon as one of them leaned over me I pulled it out, cut them good, and freed myself from that table they had me on.

GT: It’s amazing you could think so clearly under pressure; I for one would have been terrified.

HW: Once you spend enough time in the outback everything else feels like you’re playing on easy mode.

GT: So you freed yourself but were still trapped in space.

HW: It was a chaotic mess after I got up.

HW: Those alien gits started firing like they were hopped up on poprocks. I was dodging and rolling around like it was tax season avoiding them till I grabbed one and used them as a shield.

HW: I was about to demand they take me back when this door behind me opened up and there’s a whole bunch of more gits waiting to rush in and grab me. So I threw my hostage at them and stabbed one of them in the head when he tried to bash my head in.

GT: You killed them?

HW: Maybe. For all I know the blokes don’t die from being stabbed, but they didn’t get back up and I didn’t wait to find out. I left my knife and started running as fast as I can in the opposite direction.

HW: Anyway, these alarms starting going off and things are flashing blue. These doors start closing all around me as and I’m hearing this loud ringing of boots behind me so I figure I’m being hemmed in on all sides.

HW: Finally I hit this dead end with no escape until I look up and see a vent of some kind.

GT: What made you think it was a vent? This is an alien ship after all.

HW: I saw Die hard enough times to know a vent.

HW: So I took a gamble and jumped at the thing reaching for it with my right hand and the vent swings open.

HW: The guards are almost right on top of me so I used all my strength and jumped a second time and my hands grab the edges of it. I barely had enough time to pull myself in and pull the vent closed behind me again.

HW: Next thing I see is this group of aliens all armed to the teeth come pouring into the hallway and start standing around dumbfounded.

GT: You’re telling me they didn’t check the vents?

GT: I would think that would be the first place they would look.

HW: I know, right?

HW: I was sitting there in that tiny vent quiet as a murid looking down at these things as they start panicking and shouting into metal boxes of some kind. They looked like communicators if I had to guess.

HW: About ten minutes passed before they started filing out again back the way they came and I breathed a sigh of relief.

GT: A thrilling escape.

GT: What happened next?

HW: I made my way through the vent system for as far as I could. It was a maze of metal tight spaces and I’m pretty sure I got lost several times before I ended up on the bridge of the ship.

GT: How did you know it was the bridge?

HW: They had this huge window overlooking the planet with a bunch of alien’s running back and forth between these computer things. One of them was sitting directly beneath me and I wagered they were the captain since every one of those aliens would speak with them first before doing anything.

GT: That brings up a good question; what did their language sound like?

HW: You ever drag your fingers across a chalk board as a kid?

GT: I did.

HW: Imagine that and you’re not far off.

HW: The captain must have heard me because no sooner had I got there did they turn around and look up at the vent I was in.

HW: Before they could sound the alarm I kicked open the vent and jumped down to the bridge. The aliens started screaming and running around like ants, so I grabbed the captain and took him hostage.

GT: I see you have a habit of taking hostages, should I be concerned?

HW: Are you an alien that has abducted me?

GT: No.

HW: Then you’re fine.

HW: To sum up what happened next I essentially traded the captain for a ride back to the planet which they gave me; but the damn blokes left me in the middle of the outback again and I had to trudge my way back to the nearest town and I passed out along the way.

GT: Fascinating story.

GT: It’s a shame you don’t have any proof to back up said claim though.

HW: Who said I didn’t?

GT: Are you going to show us a blurry photo you took or a hunk of metal you claim was from there ship.

HW: *Slams alien pistol on table*

GT: * Looks confused*

GT: What is that?

HW: That’s the alien pistol they shot me with. I stole one off the captain on my way back to earth.

GT: How did you get a weapon in here? *Looks off screen at security*

HW: They thought it was a toy so they let me keep it.

GT: Are…are you going to shoot me to prove it’s real?

HW: I had considered it with your attitude.

GT: *Looking increasingly nervous but continues smiling*

GT: I don’t think our listeners would-

HW: But then I decided it would be easier if I just shot myself since I’m not a dick like you.

GT: Wh-

HW: *Picks up alien pistol and shoots himself sending him flying across the room and off screen*

GT: HOLY SH-

*Signal cuts out*

[xruiningth3sh0wx]

Does it make you feel

Like a man? To know by your

Hands, a disadvantaged

Creature dies? Does it

Make you hard, you fucking

Scumbag, that you got to show

This miracle of creation how much,

By you, it is despised? I bet you

Were aroused as you stared coldly

Into its frightened eyes.

 

Walk among us, you get to, without

Any consequence. Taking you out with

Shotgun justice, that would be deemed

Terroristic dissidence. But fuck it,

If that’s what it takes, then it is

You that’ll be slain. Day by day, your

Numbers will drop; their deaths shall not

Have been in vain. Upon those racks you’ll be

Placed, and you’ll get your own

Doses of pain. Let’s see how you will

Like to have been driven completely insane.

 

Grab you by your legs,

I’d like to do. Slam you into

Pavement over and over again

Until you’re black, dead, and blue.

You’re one of the dregs,

And hope someone

Someday fucking kills you. Psychopathic

Monster, I hope your contaminated

Innards are twisted and construed.

 

No love in your heart,

Just possessed by only hate.

 

Boy, oh boy, I bet, to you,

It feels so fucking great.

 

Do you think of doing

The same to your

Wife and kids? Nay, I don’t

Imagine you think

Of doing it, but actually

Act, bashing them against the

Hard surface when you’re pissed.

 

Pray and hope, I do, that no one

Would ever wish to mate with a

Machine such as yourself. May chains

Bound you ever so tightly as armies

Of wicked things drag you off

Right into Hell. Where you must

Abandon and all hope, and every time

You die, once again, you must

Face the goddamn rope.

 

Can you feel?

 

Not a chance; I hope your skin

Is slowly peeled.

 

And it still wouldn’t be enough

For all the babies’ lives you steal.

 

The families you butcher and maim,

Because to you, it’s just a sick, demented game.

 

Once you started, your feat was forever sealed.

 

Violently stop their beating hearts,

And let the beatings start.

 

Dig into their chest, tear open their

Ribcage, and make sure they’re torn apart.

 

“There is a practice in the meat industry. PAC, it is called. Which stands for…pound against concrete. You may ask yourself, with uncertainty and terror welling up in your heart: what does “pound against concrete” entail, exactly? To pound against concrete means to take a pig that isn’t viable for consumption by the masses (the fucking masses…), typically a baby, a piglet…grab it by its hind legs, like some kind of metal chain, and whack it against the cold, hard ground repeatedly. Over and over. Until it is dead.

 

Now, I don’t know about you…but these don’t sound like beings that are alive, to me. Nay, these sound like what I’ve once referred to as…dead flesh walking. “Dead flesh walking” are those bastards who have no soul. Their blood is just liquid ice in their veins, and their hearts do not beat. Matter of a fact, if you were to cut them open (which you absolutely should…), they might not even possess a heart. Famous examples include Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer, Ed Kemper, Gary Ridgeway, Richard Ramirez, John Wayne Gacy, and many others. What did they all have in common? A distinct knack for the bludgeoning, burning, dissection, beating, torturing, psychologically tormenting, and general murdering…of animals. Of course, those who practice the sadistic art of pounding little piggies against concrete are not regarded as serial killers, or, at least, adjacent to them. Why’s that? Because it serves an economic function. It feeds the ever-gluttonous population of human scum that has overfilled planet Earth. It’s useful, it’s utilitarian. I bet many consider them heroes. Probably revered in their local communities.

 

I bet they get off on it. I bet it makes them absolutely tickled, these pieces of shit. I bet they can’t wait to tell their fucking family and friends. Hell, I bet it isn’t just pigs they do it to. Why do you think they get so good at it? It starts with critters…and then next thing you know, kids go missing. Entrails drag out, with the evidence of unspeakable acts having been committed against them.

 

A part of me…a large part of me…would like to, in the name of those poor bovids, get some revenge. Place their teeth against the nearest street curb. Like that infamous scene in the movie American History X, where Derek Vineyard loses his shit, shortly before going to prison. Pound their skulls against concrete with the heel of my boot.

 

The law has always protected those who least deserve it.

 

So, I’ll end this with a quote from an Irish playwright I greatly admire…

 

“Whilst we, the conventional…were wasting our time on education, agitation, and organization, some independent genius has taken the matter in hand…”

 

Pure terror.

 

All they know, and all they understand.

 

Why not give them something in return?”

[theunicornsystem]

Last weekend, we went camping and hiking at a state park. It was really pretty, and we saw three deer. We called five of our friends while we were at the cabin.   On the drive back, we went shopping at the outlet malls. A thing about having DID/OSDD is that you buy all sorts of clothes—feminine clothes, masculine clothes, childish clothes, formal clothes, colorful clothes, dark clothes… if someone were to look at our closet, they’d probably think “Oh, multiple people share that closet” and they’re technically not wrong.

We went to an indoor playground with our brother and we hadn’t been there in years. Afterward, we went to The Original Pancake House and got delicious strawberry crepes. Then, we went to the library and I got a bunch of books for the littles (child alters). Ruby likes The Critter Club, Dory Fantasmagory, and Sophie Mouse, and Evie likes all of those plus The Boxcar Children, The Babysitters Club, and The Magic Treehouse.

Two weekends ago, I had a tabling event for ANSR—Association for Nonsmokers Minnesota, we’re advocating to end the sale of flavored tobacco. The tabling event was at a Powwow—Native American dance. It was the first Powwow I’d been to. A girl from another school and I got over 100 people to sign cards to mail to local governors advocating to end the sale of flavored tobacco. The ANSR advisors said that was amazing, that sometimes people only get around 20 cards signed, and that we got more cards signed than any time he’s ever seen. I said "Hi! We're association for nonsmokers, we're advocating to end the sale of flavored tobacco. Would you help support our cause by signing this card? Feel free to keep the pen and take candy, sticky notes, stickers, and chapstick. This (paper) is to spread awareness on ending the sale of flavored tobacco, and if you have anyone in your life trying to quit, this (paper) is a resource.” It was a pretty big boost to my confidence, and I also got paid for it. 

Last week, my DECA advisor gave me a shirt he’d gotten for me from the state competition. He said he felt like I worked so hard, put in so much effort, and that my business plan was so good, and that didn’t get acknowledged at the district competition. He got me the shirt because he felt like I should’ve been at the state competition, and that meant a lot to me. After he came back from the national 2024 DECA competition in Anaheim California, he told me that somebody from our school placed top 10 in one of the competitive events. While I wish I could’ve been there, I’m really happy for her.

This weekend, I watched the Disney movie Wish with my mentor. I thought it was good. I won’t give any spoilers. The star was really cute. 

There was a girl at school, and I’ve seen that she has some issues, she swears at people a lot and gets into physical fights. She came up to me and I was wearing a shirt that said “Gender-affirming healthcare saves lives”. She read it out loud and laughed, then got her friends’ attention and they laughed at me too. I was kind of frustrated because it’s hard enough to exist as a trans person without other people’s disrespect and hate. Then she asked, “What’s your opinion on vaping in the bathroom?” I didn’t want to tell her how against it I was because she’d likely retaliate against me, so I hesitated and said “Uh, I’m not going to answer that.” Then, the next day, she came up to me with her friends and said “What do you think about vaping?” I debated whether or not I should tell a behavior interventionist. I didn’t want to come off as the type of person who tattles on every little thing. But at the same time, I didn’t like how she was messing with me, and I’d seen her get aggressive with people before. I did end up telling a behavior interventionist after the second time, he talked to her and she’s going to leave me alone now. If she messes with me again, he says I should stand up to her, that she’s not going to get physically aggressive with me, and tell a behavior interventionist right away.

To end on a good note, Evie (a child alter) was reading Dory Fantasmagory on our Instagram live and lots of friends were there watching and commenting. Eventually, Avery and I came to front, and we googled fun and lighthearted questions to ask each other and shared our answers. It was a really lovely time and we’re grateful for all our online friends. 

Thank you for all your support and encouragement!

[scolopendress-tag]

Have some Asra n Muriel disorganized headcanons: animal themed!

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

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

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

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

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

[Cont. after cut]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Moving on from that....

Animal knowledge!

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

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

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

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

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

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

But he doesn't need to. <3

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

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

Annnnd

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

[grelleswife]

Sebamey for the domestic ask meme? uwu

Doing these for a modern human AU, if that's okay!

1. Who cooks normally?

Sebastian. He learned to cook at a young age and has taken several classes over the years, so he knows his way around a kitchen! Mey Rin's culinary expertise ends at basic survival cooking, and she has a tendency to leave out key ingredients, mix up the salt and sugar, etc. She much prefers to let bae fix their meals, yes she does! XD

2. How often do they fight?

Infrequently. Since Mey Rin is far too good-natured to be quarrelsome most of the time, and Sebastian adores her, they can usually sort out their differences through more peaceful means. On the rare occasions when they do fight, Sebastian is the soul of contrition afterwards, meekly apologizing for his part in the argument. He'll also get Mey flowers or make a similar gesture as a token of his remorse. Mey Rin isn't the type to stay angry for long, and tearfully hugs him after saying sorry for any unnecessarily harsh words that were exchanged.

3. What do they do when they're away from each other?

Because both of them have full-time jobs, a large chunk of their time spent away from each other is devoted to work. In this verse, I'm picturing Mey Rin as either a children's librarian (the kids would love her), a physical therapist, or a personal fitness trainer; Sebastian is an assistant professor of English literature (or Latin, or philosophy, or violin) at the local university. On her time off, Mey Rin enjoys hanging out with Grelle, Angelina, and Ran Mao (her BFFs from college), as well as her foster brothers, Bardroy and Finny. She might also take up a pastime like competitive shooting or archery. Sebastian, for his part, regularly volunteers at a nearby, no-kill cat shelter (he adopted most of his fur-babies from there), and will occasionally go out for coffee or drinks with his good friend Agni, a professor of culinary arts at the same school where Seb teaches. He favors solitary hobbies, such as writing (he's currently working on a novel), playing the piano or violin, and painting.

4. Nicknames for each other?

Mey calls her partner "honey," "luv," and, of course, "Kittybastian" (Sebas doesn't purr in this AU, but it still fits! XD). Sebastian calls Mey Rin "dear" and "sweetheart." >w<

5. Who is more likely to pay for dinner?

Generally Sebastian, because he loves making Mey Rin feel like a princess! However, she occasionally insists on treating him instead.

6. Who steals the covers at night?

Mey! She'll gather the blankets around herself and curl up in a happy, warm little coccoon. Sebastian doesn't begrudge her, however; how could he be mad about lost covers when she looks so precious? He'll just smile and cuddle up next to her.

7. What would they get each other for gifts?

Mey quickly learns that anything cat-themed is usually a hit with Sebastian! She also gives her genderfluid partner various accessories (hair clips, bracelets, necklaces, etc.) and makeup; Sebastian's face lights up like a Christmas tree when they see the pretty things Mey bought for them. >w< I have a random headcanon that modern!Mey Rin loves to collect Calico Critters, so this Sebastian would get her tons of paraphernalia related to that. They share a love for gaming and anime, so it's common for one to give the other merch related to those pursuits!

8. Who remembers things?

Sebastian has a slightly better memory. Mey Rin can be somewhat scatterbrained, especially when her anxiety kicks into high gear.

9. Who cusses more?

Sebas swears more in everyday life, but Mey can cuss up a storm when her wrath is unleashed! >:3

10. What would they do if the other one was hurt?

Internally, Mey Rin would be freaking out, but she'd do her best to stay calm long enough to bandage Sebastian up and/or call for help, holding her boyfriend's hand, petting his hair, and assuring him that everything would be okay. Once Sebastian's condition was stable, however, she'd hug him as tight as she could and cry from all the pent-up worry and stress. Seb's protective instincts would go into overdrive if Mey was hurt, even if the injury was relatively minor. He'd be frantic and unwilling to leave her side (if Mey had to be hospitalized, the doctors would probably need to have him forcibly dragged out of the room). Once his girlfriend was convalescing, Sebastian would wait on her hand and foot, giving her as much TLC as humanly possible.

11. Who kissed who first?

I could see it going either way, to be honest. On one hand, Mey Rin might impulsively get up on tiptoe to kiss him before dashing off, shocked at her own boldness! On the other, Sebastian might give her a parting kiss at the end of one of their early dates...a cinematic, passionate one while they're standing on her doorstep.

12. Who made the first move?

They met at a Christmas party hosted by Grelle and An (who are married in this AU), where Mey tripped and spilled punch on Sebastian. While she was mortified about getting her drink all over his fancy suit, Sebastian could only gaze in awe at the beautiful woman who'd literally stumbled into his life. The music for the next number started playing over the speakers, and Sebastian asked her on the spot if she'd like to join him in a dance. Dear Mey was baffled--shouldn't this gorgeous stranger be angry at her?--but as soon as she squeaked out a tremulous, "Um...yes? Yes I would!", he took her by the hand, and off they went. Four dances later, both were head over heels. Utterly oblivious to the state of his ruined clothing, Sebastian walked home with a dreamy smile on his face and a scrap of paper with Mey Rin's number written on it in his pocket.

13. Who started the relationship?

I think it happened organically; in the wake of that first meeting, they went on several "kinda-sorta" dates at the park, their favorite coffee shops, etc., and their chemistry was undeniable. It didn't take either one of them very long to realize they were crushing hard on the other. One starry evening, while Sebastian was walking Mey Rin home after a night at the movies, Mey paused, grabbed his hand, and gazed deeply into his eyes. Impulsively, she blurted out, "What are we, Sebastian? Because I really really like you, yes I do...and I want this to be somethin' more!"

Sebastian blushed to the roots of his hair as he whispered, "Well, I really, really like you too...and I'd love for this be to more."

[pleasespellchimerical]

Actually speaking of leeches, and creepy aquatic things--

I spent a lot of time in my undergrad doing stream ecology. It was an area I sort of fell into by accident, but I enjoyed it a lot.

I spent hours out in the field. Measuring streams, taking water samples, and cataloguing the local wildlife.

We’d learned about lampreys in class. Primarily sea lampreys, which are from Europe and are highly invasive in the Great Lakes. Lampreys are scary looking fuckers. They have a maw of teeth straight out of a Soulsborne game. Some species use this maw to latch onto fish and suck out all their blood. Other species are not parasitic at all - they only feed as larvae, and their terrifying maws are purely decorative.

Let’s just say that I was terrified to ever meet one of these guys.

(Lampreys don’t attack humans. They just look like something out of a B monster movie.)

During one of the sampling expeditions, we pulled up a handful of lampreys in the seine net. 

They got dumped into a specimen tank, and I was fascinated. They were probably about 8-10 inches long, and boy did they wiggle. So wiggly. I tried to hold one for a better look, but these guys were impossible to keep a hold on. All fish have a slimy coating, but add the fact that these guys were so thin and wiggly, I couldn’t hold one for more than a few seconds before it wiggled free.

My professor identified them as Ohio lampreys, an endangered native species. These weren’t the terrifying beasties of the Great Lakes, but simply some Wiggly Lads trying to go about their day and getting majorly inconvenienced by us. 

By the time we dumped them back in the stream, I’d fallen in love.

It’s easy to be scared of lampreys. They are terrifying to look at. The scars the parasitic ones leave on fish are nasty. The issue with invasive lampreys in the Great Lakes has garnered a lot of attention, and worsened their reputation as a whole.

Because they’re the opposite of charismatic, lamprey conservation doesn’t get a lot of attention. Take Pacific lampreys. In the Pacific Northwest, they follow similar migration and spawning patterns to salmon. Despite Pacific lampreys being of great ecological and cultural importance (lampreys were a traditional food source for native Americans living in the area), they don’t get a fraction of the concern that salmon do. 

In that same undergrad class, we met an ecologist who was specifically working with Pacific lamprey. He was super cool. And by that point I was so head over heels for lampreys, I understood why someone might want to devote their career to them.

The point I’m trying to make is that there are many weird and creepy critters out there. And these weird and creepy critters are important. And to help people appreciate them, exposure is necessary.

I positively adore lampreys. And if it wasn’t for those three Ohio lampreys we fished up one early spring day in Pennsylvania, I would never have learned to love them.

[whatudottu]

Okay I have a little more thoughts on Petrosapien biology, and it’s focused around diet and stuff associated with it.

You may think that this would be an awful thought to share, but I found an interesting little critter that has the same proposed diet I want to talk about without the icky gooey extra stuff that comes after. I’m now confident to share and hopeful that this doesn’t come across as too suggestive. There’s implications but I hope you don’t mind all too much.

Besides, Petrosapiens don’t look the type to... do all that anyway.

In my random perusal of the internet, fueled by curiosity and the drive to google those questions, I discovered a pretty little clam. Sure, this clam, a shipworm as it’s called, digests wood and is often found buried within sunken ships, but scientists were recently (for science standards at least) introduced to shipworms that consume rocks by Philippine locals of the Bohal province.

Already a great start.

Okay fine, the scientists aren’t sure if these clams eat more than just limestone or the bacteria in their guts is enough to take nutrients from the stone, but I’m talking about an alien species, and the mere speculation of it in our own earthly creatures just allows me to run for the hills and die on my claim.

So, given that Petropia is really nothing but rock (and any synonyms you may think up) with hardly any form of true greenery, this diet should indeed make sense. Though something makes them different from the ground they walk, which I am honestly stumped myself how to answer, being able to take nutrients from stone and in this case crystal is super important for the growing Petrosapien.

But, for those catching my drift in the intro paragraphs, what’s one to do with any excess scrap that doesn’t have the good bits.

Taking a look back at our little buddy, the article I found details that this clam grinds the stone with its shell (now for Petrosapiens a mean set of grinding teeth), eats and digests the rocks that it eats, then much later expels a fine sand. Not only is this not completely excrement, it’s still sandbased, and guess what babes!

We just found out how our Petrosapiens grow!

So obviously they’re not all just biting down on the same minerals, but, with their digestive systems able to take out the nutrients from crystals, the remaining ‘scrap’ contributes to their own crystal systems. Depending on the crystals, a Petrosapien can develop different levels of mass and personal crystal structure that adds on to the already present colours, textures and shine from childhood, which I will delve into later.

The crystals of Petropia are typically cool colours, spanning from green, blue or purple and a few intermediary shades, blends and vibrancy for ‘special edition’ crystals, think exotic fruits or even drugs. The people are much the same, probably evolving to become the colour crystals that they are. Nowadays a change in diet isn’t going to change the colour of the crystals, because while the crystals themselves may be regrowable (and in that case, technically replaceable if you think mineral wise), the natural colour is moreso determined by the... ‘skin’ underneath, which often filters the excess sand to conform to individual specific crystal structures, on the common basis at least.

Speaking of natural colour, given that I was a little shy to actually talk about reproduction, I want to briefly touch on how children get to have their individual crystals and differ from their parents too.

So, when the parents cloacal kiss each other (but like in an almost fusion type of way because crystalkinesis), some shards from their stomach region disconnects and reattaches to the other. That happens because the crystals themselves do not know the genetic difference between one body from the next (a little headcanon from @karkalicious769 ‘s fanfiction ‘Diamonds are Forever’ over on AO3 if you like Petrosapiens you’ll love the fic), so that when the pair disconnects from each other, they have inclusions from the other.

It’s more obvious if they’re two different colours, which is more obvious than texture and shine, and the inclusions are rather blatant proof of fun times. The child, if successfully made, would take the base colour of the mother and, if the inclusions are different enough, they contribute to a default personal shade. Sometimes though, inclusions don’t quite fuse all too correctly, and some specks are left behind (yes I just headcanoned Petrosapien freckles, yes I think it’s cute and I hope you do too).

Hmm, I think that’s it for today... tonight... whenever. I really do like talking about this stuff, even if I’m not exactly knowledgeable in this area, and I might want to make more. Well, I’d just need to get over my bias of Petrosapiens (which is relatively easy, even if I really do think about them a little more often than what’s considered normal) but that’s all for now.

[loopy777]

Return of the Jedi is often looked upon as the weakest of the original trilogy. If you share that opinion, what do you think would have improved it? Aside from the Ewok thing, I think they could have gone with a different climax that doesn’t involve a second Death Star (maybe an old timey ship-to-ship style battle with the Executor but in space?)

Yeah, having another Death Star is definitely a bit tired. I appreciate that it came with a bunch of different visuals thanks to its half-finished nature, destroying it didn't involve another trench run, and it allowed for the biggest and most technically accomplished space action of the entire series (they did that all with real models and compositing! CGI may look nice, but it's easy), but having another super-weapon -- never mind the exact same thing as the first movie -- feels lazy.

In the early drafts, the creative team had been toying with something involving the Imperial Capital, but the action never really went beyond Death Star-esque space stations and a forest moon. I think something could have been done with the capital planet itself, but that would have required more budget than George Lucas wanted to spend, and his vision possibly wasn't even technically possible at the time.

Also, I do agree that that Ewoks are perhaps a little too kid-friendly. I think the theme works, with the 'primitives' defeating the more technological Empire, and I even think it was implemented in a believable manner. But the whole 'teddy bear picnic' look of it (as Carrie Fisher called it) was probably too much for the aging primary audience, never mind the adult fans, and there didn't need to be so much silliness and comedy with them. It's the same thing that sunk Jar-Jar and the Gungans in Phantom Menace- cute bumbling critters are fine, but then the audience isn't really going to warm to them winning a war. I don't mean that the fight needs to be all gritty and violent, but leaving the slapstick to just Wicket and letting the other Ewoks looks like experienced guerillas would have probably accomplished a lot in endearing the idea to the audience.

More than the teddy bears, though, I think the look of Endor's moon itself doesn't meet Star Wars standards. It's just a forest, the same thing you can see in any low-budget fantasy movie. Sure, there are a few more redwoods in RotJ than in LotR Knockoff #47, but it's still a step down from what came before. Tatooine was probably the most boring-looking planet before that, in terms of environment, but the sci-fi civilization built on the desert made it interesting. Endor's moon is just a forest and the Ewok treehouses. There's no wow-factor, especially after ESB upped the game from the first movie.

Overall, though, I think the main problem with RotJ is one that isn't really visible on the screen. It's the primary culprit behind the lack of enthusiasm people feel for the movie, IMO.

I'm talking, of course, about the pacing.

The first part of the movie, the rescue of Han from Jabba, feels like a stand-alone adventure more appropriate to an episode of a TV series. It has nothing to do with the conflict with the Empire, and has this slow rollout of the cast that definitely feels like it's reintroducing the audience to them, an odd choice for the last movie in a trilogy. Nothing is accomplished by it except reestablishing the status quo, getting the whole cast ready to return to the real story. It's the most visually impressive location in the movie, with the rancor and all the alien costumes, but in the end Luke just fights his way through it. Throwing Luke and company into something a bit more involved, like if Jabba was meeting with another crime lord and Luke played them off against each other or something, would be a bit more engaging. But that would still leave this section of the movie feeling separate from everything else. I'm not sure how to solve that, as it is a bit of business leftover from ESB that has to be tided up in some way, and it's a good example of why playing things by ear can be really hard even for people who are good at it.

The next major problem with the pacing comes on Endor's moon, when Luke and company spend so much time meeting the Ewoks. I don't think it's a long time in actual count of minutes, but it's a slow bit that's probably more drawn out than it needs to be. The original Star Wars was a location-hopping adventure with wonderfully-paced forward momentum buoyed by some fun moments of natural downtime. ESB was a chase sequence spiced up with the ramping romance between Han and Leia, with Luke's powering up and exploration of the Force inter-spaced, culminating in the heroes suffering major dramatic defeats. But RotJ starts with a side-quest, then Luke gets the truth about Vader in a good scene that's still just people sitting around and talking, and after a speeder bike chase (that again is probably too long) the heroes take their time becoming friends with Ewoks in a forest. Star Wars was exhilarating before this, and now it's laboring to the finish line while dithering to clean up its own subplots.

(Note: I do NOT advocate avoiding the due diligence of cleaning up subplots in order to try to maintain a propulsive plot, and the final movie certainly isn't the place to be throwing new subplots in. That's how you get Rise Of Skywalker, and no one wants that.)

When the big finale starts, with Luke confronting Vader and then the Battle of Endor kicking off, the pacing finally gets back on track, IMO. George Lucas knows how to edit together an action sequence, if nothing else, and knows when to cut back to the slower but more emotionally meaty Luke-stuff with the Emperor.

However, I do think the parts with Han and Leia can come across as a little rote, since their action isn't really tied to any story or character arc for them. It's functional enough with them both leading the rebellion, but there's nothing particularly dramatic about it for them, and they're just busting one small bunker, compared to Lando taking on the big examples of Imperial might, the Death Star and the Executor Super Star Destroyer. Han and Leia don't even get to fight one of the big walkers, they just fight the smaller chicken-walkers! And I think Lando's role does feel more like part of his character arc, with him being a respectable leader for the good guys in a nice uniform, and using his cleverness to keep the fleet alive long enough to assault the Death Star.

But, strangely, the moment in the whole Endor battle that feels the most like a culmination is when the Executor Super Star Destroyer is destroyed, and none of the main characters are even involved in that! Sure, blowing up another Death Star is fine, but we've already done it. No one has blown up a Super Star Destroyer before, and that got built up through the whole previous movie.

Fortunately, everything about Luke's big climax with Vader and the Emperor is functionally perfect, and that's the part that people were most interested in, so I don't think that RotJ really stumbles at the end. It succeeds and does deliver a lot of what people had come to like about Star Wars. It just doesn't do it as intensely or smoothly as the previous efforts, so it feels weaker.

So if I were to try to create a 'stronger' RotJ, I'd probably shave the Han Rescue down to a quick action-packed prologue, do the Vader=Father explanation for Luke as a mix of Obi-Wan's explanation with a trippy Force Vision Quest with some interesting visuals, then have the Rebellion assault the Imperial capital in a mix of space and ground battle. I'd get rid of the whole concept of the forest setting and the spear-wielding primitives, since that's the same metaphor as the Empire and Rebellion, anyway. I'd also make the Rebellion fleet smaller and more desperate, connecting it clearly to the losses from the previous movie, and the attack on the capital is some kind of desperate last ploy, motivated by some kind of time limit. Luke still confronts Vader and the Emperor alone. For Han and Leia, I wonder if -- instead of simply having them fight -- they could maybe rally some downtrodden local citizenry to help take down or turn off some big Imperial Plot Thingy, giving them a chance to show leadership and unite the Rebellion with the people it's been fighting for, or something like that. Han could even tell the locals about the Force, something they've never heard of, living on the capital. And Leia gives them the chance at freedom.

Hm, perhaps the first assault against the Imperial Palace fails at first, with a bunch of Rebels dying but Leia and Han escaping, leaving Lando and company stranded in space with the baddies? Then Leia and Han need to find an alternate way to accomplish the goal, giving the 'meet the locals' sequence a bit more intensity and a time limit, but still serving as a bit of downtime between actiony bits. Or the final half of the movie could be all action, with the relative downtime being Luke's part with the Emperor and Vader in the palace. (This is the kind of thing decided in the editing room.) Then the Rebel assault can be continuous, and about to lose when Han and Leia show up with reinforcements. Movie audiences love that. They turn off the Imperial Plot Thingy. Then Lando lands the decisive blow on the Executor, which crashes into the Imperial Palace just after Luke escapes in the wake of Vader's death.

Anyway, that's all off the top of my head. But you see where I'm going with this. Keep it moving, keep it intense, keep it new and interesting, don't get too hung up on the Vietnam War metaphor that inspired certain themes, and try to put more characters arcs into things so that Harrison Ford doesn't spend the next 30 years talking about how much he wanted his character to die.

Maybe we can have a village of Ewoks living in the capital sewers, along with other Downtroddens. There's no reason not to have any teddy bears.

Star Wars is supposed to be fun, too. And a little silly.

[arabellaflynn]

For anyone who didn't catch it on other social media, I have finally moved out of the "temporary" apartment I was stuck in for 7 months, thanks to a lot of emotional and logistical support from friends, and a generous amount of financial support from the folks who gave to my GoFundMe. I am endlessly grateful to all of you, and if I weren't so goddamn tired right now I'd be more eloquent in saying so.

I've spent the past few weeks of unpacking and working out the bus routes around my new place trying to figure out how to explain what was so terrible about the last one. Most attempts devolved into page upon page of rage, which is not really what I want to be doing here. On the other hand, I also don't want to downplay how bad it was. 

Spoiler: The temp apartment was Very Very Bad.

The tl;dr is that I was offered someone's spare room on the condition that I help out a little extra with household chores and caring for their rats, because the pet owning roommate had recently had back surgery and was still mobility-impaired. What actually happened is that as soon as they realized I had any basic life skills whatsofuckingever, I was cornered into becoming the 24/7 on-call House Adult. I would have gone on strike, but the other two people in the apartment were so terrible at coping with absolutely any aspect of being alive that if I had, one or both of them would probably be dead now.

That is not hyperbole. I sat back at one point and realized that I had talked to 911 dispatch five times in the preceding four months. None of those calls were for me. To be clear, I ain't mad about other people having medical problems. All five of those calls were appropriate and necessary uses of emergency services. I just resent the hell out of being the default option for handling all of it, even though none of the medical emergency problems were mine, and there were other people in the house. Literally, Short Roommate had a catastrophic asthma attack one night, and when she was wheezing too hard to talk she passed the phone to Tall Roommate -- who immediately ran to the other end of the apartment, banged on my door, and handed the phone to me. It got to the point where I just told the operator what was up, went downstairs to unlock the door for EMS, stood in the corner answering the occasional question until they hauled someone off to the hospital, and then went right back to bed, because none of this was my problem. And that's just the 911 calls, not even counting the number of times I had to talk her down out of a dissociative episode, or any of the other shit I was not warned about and did not volunteer to do. They wore me down until my only response to "a fellow human can't breathe" is "fuck's sake, why am I even involved here".

They both needed a lot more, and a lot more professional, help than they could possibly have gotten out of a random civilian roommate. They both fought tooth and nail against actually getting any of it. Every time Short Roommate was dragged to the hospital, her discharge papers included a big fat packet full of social services, resources, and business cards for actual physical people to phone. I know this because whenever I cleaned the apartment, I found them on the fucking floor, whereupon I placed them on her fucking keyboard, and told her point-blank to call these people. As far as I know, she never did.

I am neither qualified nor equipped to be a live-in caregiver for anybody. There is a fucking reason I have never wanted children. I keep critters because if you give them food, water, toys, and boxes to sleep in, you can leave them to entertain themselves for hours while you work or sleep, and no one will arrest you.

There was a bunch of other stuff. Tall Roommate rarely if ever cleaned anything, including herself, unless directly ordered to do so and given a detailed list of instructions of what you meant by "clean". I only ever got her to wash her own damn dishes once, and I did it by messaging her from the other room 'I just found a mouse in the sink eating snacks off your dirty plates GO DO YOUR DISHES'. She had a laundry list of problems, but the relevant one here is that she was high-support-needs autistic with no support and zero inclination to find any. 

[Did I mention the mice? We had mice. All over. The rats murdered two of them when they got into the cages, looking for the free-feed bowl.]

Short Roommate clearly loved her rats but didn't actually do any of the rat care beyond petting and playing. One of them was tremendously sick at one point and needed meds q6h. She was supposed to be helping with that and didn't, which meant that I went several weeks on a maximum of six hours of uninterrupted sleep a night. I tore the fuck into her for that one, pointing out in exactly so many words that some of these meds were painkillers and if the rat didn't get them on time HE SUFFERS. Not doing any of the grunt work, Short Roommate evidently thought rats were so easy she should just keep getting more of them! She rescued two, one of whom was preggo, kept several of the babies, and started talking about waiting for one of the girls to grow up so she could breed him with one of her younger boys. 

Gentle Reader, I promise you the only reason I did not strangle her in her sleep that very night was that I knew, deep in my heart, that I could not move the body down two flights of stairs by myself, and if I left it up to Tall Roommate, the corpse would still be in the apartment today.

If I were inclined to any sympathy, it would have died when Short Roommate moved out to shack up with New Boyfriend and New Boyfriend's Mother. She initially took all the rats with her, which made them officially not my problem anymore, but I woke up one morning to a message that said something like "[New Boyfriend's Mother] says that if I show up to our new place with the rats she's not going to let me in, [Tall Roommate] is coming back with all the rats and everything they own". I found out later that this was because their new place was in section 8 housing, where you are not allowed to have pets that aren't service or support animals. Which Short Roommate had known the entire time, and just... made no plans for. At all. Unless "ignore everything until bitchslapped by reality, then panic and make unreasonable demands of other people" counts, I guess.

Eight rats. She dumped eight rats on me. Eight. I wound up taking care of them all without help; Tall Roommate was incapable of keeping anything in her habitat clean, including herself, and I wasn't willing to let her neglect animals. I was actually down to one rat of my own, having lost my two venerable old men, and was looking for a new friend or two for Tseng. Which I had to stop doing, because nine fucking rats is a lot of rats, and I couldn't in good conscience bring Rats nos. 10 & 11 into this shitshow. Naturally, none of the rats got along; two pairs of boys had to be kept apart, and both of them tried to pick fights with poor Tseng, and four of them were girls that had to be kept away from all of the boys for obvious reasons. It was exhausting and a catastrophe.

Once I had the rats she apparently made no further effort to re-home them, although she did keep telling Tall Roommate to come knock on my door and take pictures of them. (I put a stop to this. Tall Roommate did it because Short Roommate had broken up with her to shack up with New Boyfriend, and Tall Roommate had literally no way to cope with this other than try desperately to get her back.) I bugged her to do something about this until, predictably, I had to contact the local rat rescue people to find fosters less than a week before my moving crew was scheduled. When I told her, she replied "oh, I was just about to submit that". Sure you were. And while you're here, I have this nice bridge to sell you.

[The four girls and two youngest boys went to Mainely Rat Rescue. It looks like the boys have already found a home, but the girls are up for adoption. I kept the two old men, who both have special care needs; Garion has breathing problems that involve his own asthma inhaler and a steady diet of NSAIDs, and Errand has attitude problems that involve picking fights with any rat who isn't Garion. They're both just shy of three(!) and unlikely to find homes through a foster program, plus I'm already their third caretaker, so I couldn't send them off with a stranger. They are currently sulking because I wouldn't supplement their dinner with all of my dinner -- which is to say, they're fine.]

The point is, my brain just about died off. The only time in that apartment that I didn't spend cleaning up after three grown adults, two of whom weren't even me, were the weeks after Short Roommate moved out to shack up with New Boyfriend, which she had broken up with Tall Roommate to do, and Tall Roommate took it so badly she ended up inpatient before she ate a bottle of Tylenol. (I called 911 when I overheard her plans. It was about 50% "a fellow human is in need of help" and 50% "argh jesus fuck THIS IS NOT MY JOB please go talk to someone who is actually paid to deal with this".) I am slowly clawing my way back to the surface, so if you'll just bear with me, I'll be back on Twitch this Sunday 3-7 Eastern, and type out more things that have been on hold while I tried to retain at least some of my marbles.

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[drferox]

So I am feeling under the weather again and wanted to take a break from the usual to daydream about the farm I would one day like to have in the future, and all the things on it.

Basically a permaculture set up maintained by a small group of people that either live full or part time on the property, trying to be self-sustaining and do away with modern monocultures as much as we possibly can. I would love to be maintaining genetic stocks of plants and animals that had fallen out of favor with industrialisation and factory farming, those that perhaps were less efficient as converting feed into animal protein, but those that were hardier on ‘unimproved’ (read: more natural) terrain. Heritage and old-style breeds.

The LSB might be spending his time figuring out how to build Earthships and set up aquaponics and the tech side of it, while I spend my time thinking about the biosphere side.

Oof, I want my fluffy Highland Cattle so badly. Smaller than some of the european breeds, hardy on unimproved pasture and good mothering instincts means they’d probably do quite well on a gradually improving system. Plus they’re one of the breeds most genetically similar to the ancient Aurochs, which is cool in and of itself, but with so much of our beef cattle herd being angus/hereford/shorthorn and the occasional wagyu (whether that’s real wagyu or not) I would really like to maintain a pocket population of these cattle, even if I can only manage 6-8 breeding cows and their offspring.

Some homesteaders milk one as their house cow, but I have a fondness for the old Jersey cow and wouldn’t mind having one around for milk, but I’m not sure if she’d bee too productive or require more feed supplements than we have available. So I would be hoping to carefully experiment with crossing the Jersey to Highlands and see what a 50:50 or 25:75 cross produces and whether that’s suitable for whatever land we end up with. I’d also be very curious to see what a Jersey’s mothing instincts are like if she has other cattle with good mothering instincts to hang around, watch and learn from. (Because whether cows have a cultural component to mothering behavior is something I’d be curious to look at)

Tamworth pigs! An older breed that is barely hanging on in Australia (and importing new pig genetics is nearly impossible with our quarantine rules), I would be really keen to help the conservation of this breed one day. They’re not as long-backed as the Large White x Landrace pigs that are mostly used in commercial and factory farming setups, which means slightly less bacon meat per pig, and they have smaller litters typically or around 8 instead of around 10-12, but they’re better foragers, typically lose less piglets to mortality even in free range settings and they’re brown! Which under the Australian sun means less UV associated skin conditions/cancers.  Imagine them foraging through weedy land to help clear it, or foraging under the fruit trees in established orchards.

Goat friends! Partly to graze down weeds and rough land, and partly because I enjoy being around goats and would love to be able to make goatmilk soap.

Chickens are something that I must have one day, and something that I need to research a heck of a lot more. I want to be able to maintain multiple different genetic groups so I can have different coloured eggs.

All of those egg colours are from chickens! And I think that’s fantastic. But I need to look a lot more into the breeds that are actually available in Australia, brush up on my pet chicken medicine skills, and sit down to do the maths and logistics about maintaining all these separate breeds of chickens together. But somebody has to scour the vegetable patches of bugs and it’s going to be these funky little dinosaurs.

Peacocks are another species I’d be interesting in keeping, espeically some of the weirder colour combinations like charcoal and cameo. I’m not sure on their availability though, and haven’t seen much on their health in general so of course curious to know more about these relatively uncommon colours.

They’re also a kind of family history thing, so perhaps more mascot than anything else, but the feathers are lovely.

I thought about quails for more species diversity, but probably wouldn’t do turkeys or ducks. Turkeys may be difficult to keep healthy if they’re rotating over ground that had chickens in it in a free range system, and to be honest there are plenty of native duck species that I’d rather visit and fly away instead of trying to keep. They’re quire messy little critters, cute as they are.

Geese though, geese are a maybe. They can graze, and in a rotational grazing system they’re useful because there are multiple species of worms that cattle, pigs and even kangaroos can transmit which the geese do not, so there’s potentially a job for them there.

I haven’t contemplated rabbits at all because there are already so many feral ones, and they come with myxo, that keeping domestic rabbits on a rural property seems just unwise. And there are feral deer, feral pigs, and kangaroos/wallaby in many rural areas that they have to be accounted for too. Feral pigs are a quarantine risk for domestic pigs, feral deer can bring in too many worm species, but the roos can visit as long as they stay on the grasses and not the vegetable gardens.

I couldn’t forget fish either. Our freshwater rivers have been in such a bad shape for so long, why wouldn’t I farm native freshwater species in the farm dams or an aquaponics system? Even if most of what we need from the fish is their poop, I like looking at fish, and maintaining a healthy population independent from the whims of river water politics would make me feel slightly more comfortable about the future.

Murray cod and perch are the commonly available species, but with enough tanks there’s no reason I couldn’t have other, smaller river species or even invertebrates that are local to wherever we end up. Gotta keep those genetics alive somewhere, and if we can do it, why wouldn’t we?

Bugs and bees! We’d need to have corridors of native plants as havens for native insects (I want my Christmas Beetles back on the landscape, thank you) but also strips of non-native and cottage wildflowers and herbs to feed the honey bees, grow our drier herbs and florals for soap making.The plan being having lots of different species mixed together makes it harder for pathogens to take hold

And that’s just animal breeds I’d really like to have running around the place, before even looking at the heritage breeds of cottage vegetables that have been making a comeback through places like Digger’s. I think my favourite is Granny’s Throwing Tomato.

[nuclearmu5hroom]

I saw this floating around and I decided to pick it up for funsies idk

FALLOUT OC INTERVIEW

Rules:

1) Choose an OC

2) Answer questions as that OC

3) Tag 5 people to do the same

1) What is your name? Dr. Drake Fenring, Director of the New Institute.

(more under the cut)

2) How old are you? You’ll have to get more specific than that. I suppose biologically you could say I’m approximately 44 years old, though I was born in 2052. I doubt you’ll be able to understand the circumstances that brought me to this era.

3) What do you look like? I’m 5′7″, 140 lbs. Blonde hair, brown eyes its right there in the picture, what more do I have to explain? If you’re wanting to know what kind of clothing I prefer I am generally wearing my lab coat, or my uniform. I keep clean, bathe regularly (unlike the rest of these cretins) and prefer to stay as healthy as I can. 

4) Where are you from? Where do you live now? Originally I’m from Boston, out near Concord area. At this particular time, my current residence is classified; I’m sure there are many people who would love to know where I sleep.

5) What was your childhood like? Nothing of note. I am an only child, my mother’s name was Marie and father was Anthony. I received high marks in school, particularly in math and science. Socially, I suppose you could say I was even well liked, but my peers were simple and could be impressed by balloon animals so that doesn't quite count for much. I was more than content on my own.

6) What groups are you friendly with? Are you allied with any factions? *rolls eyes* ah yes, the factions...before my sudden voyage here I supported the US Government; I was even on the short list by invite of General Chase to reside on an oil rig just off the coast in the even of War. I didn't quite make it there, if you hadn't guessed. They called themselves the Enclave after the bomb dropped, so you can say I align with them as an original member. Its my plan to combine my former employer with my current organization which is all that is left of what used to be the Institute. Occasionally, I have been known to employ a few talented Gunners to run security from time to time as well.

7) Tell me about your best friend. I--I don’t have one...well, um. No. I have an associate that I’ve worked closely with however ‘friend’ is not the word I would choose, lets not be silly. 

8) Do you have a family? Tell me about them! They’re dead. They’ve been dead for 200 some years now, honestly I don't think much about them. However, if you must know more detail I guess I was closer to my mother growing up. My father didn't quite approve of certain aspects of myself as I got older but I never needed his approval for anything anyway. 

9) What about a partner or partners? UM.....well. That is also a complicated area of life. I’ve just recently started to realize I had....interesting emotions...come up as of late and I’m not quite sure what to make of it. I don't like this question....MOVING ON.

10) Who are your enemies, and why? Oh darling, who aren’t my enemies? Let’s see....the Railroad and the Minutemen are my current opposition, and won’t they be surprised when they find out what I have in store for them...I find the Children of Atom to be completely infantile with their “mysticism” *tch* please, give me a break. 

11) Have you ever heard of The Brotherhood of Steel? What do you think about them? The Brotherhood could have had potential but in the end they lacked the full scope of their own vision. Not surprised, considering they thought that dirty neckbearded child they called Elder could lead them to whatever victory they thought to achieve. 

12) What about The Enclave? Ah yes, my Enclave. We’ve suffered setbacks, yet no one can quite get rid of us, eh? Mark my words, I will spend my last breath in the pursuit of their return. There is so much that the Enclave and the Institute could share together. A thing of orchestrated beauty.

13) How do you feel about Super Mutants? Fascinating, if anything. As a biologist, the FEV virus was an absolute joy to work with, despite the difficult process to stabilize it. Unfortunately, like all works in progress it was not viable to continue and since they’ve become a menace to our own operations extermination is required on site. It is nice to capture one alive and run some tests...for old times sake.

14) What’s the craziest fight you’ve ever been in? I prefer not to fight, but escaping the Institute during its destruction was probably the most intense combat I've faced since Anchorage. 

15) Have you ever fought a Deathclaw? Yes. I do NOT recommend it. Only a fool would consider it.

16) Do you like fighting? It depends. I like a good struggle, especially as I watch them lose consciousness. Its amusing to watch them squirm when they wake up restrained. I am not above taking certain advantages in a fight.

17) What’s your weapon of choice? I am quite partial to my quad gauss rifle, I also have a soft spot for my bat. There’s nothing like beating a man’s skull in with nothing but a solid piece of wood.

18) How do you survive? Your wits, your charm, your skills, brute force, some combination? (a.k.a. what’s your S.P.E.C.I.A.L?) I can be very persuasive when it comes to getting what I want, when I want it. Its not hard to read the intentions of these wastelanders out here. I would be lying if I said that I didn't have a bit of luck on my side as well; things fell into place almost as soon as I arrived in this century. 

19) Have you ever been in a vault? What do you think about them? HAHAH the Vaults....right. Yes. They’re fun little games, aren't they? Some of my research even made its way into a few of the programs Vault Tec used. It was a pet project, however I still thought it was unnecessary. Waste of good resources on average people.

20) How do you beat all the radiation around here? Has it affected you? Hazmat suits, lackeys, decontamination arches, general avoidance. Its not like I’m some dumb vault dweller who decided to play hero and soak up a lethal dose like some kind of idiot. 

21) What’s your favorite wasteland critter? Critter? What kind of descriptor is that, you backwater hick? Local fauna has become too contaminated to be considered a ‘favorite’, they’re all mostly disgusting creatures. 

22) What’s your least favorite wasteland critter? Bloatflies. Hands down.

23) How do you feel about robots? Useful, to a degree. Not quite what a Gen 3 Synth is capable of....or even a Gen 1 Synth but for disposable use I find them agreeable.

24) How many caps do you have on you right now? Why? Is this a pitiful attempt to set me up to rob me after this interview? I have plenty of caps at my residence. I don't carry currency on me. 

25) Nuka Cola or Sunset Sarsaparilla? Ugh, I’d rather swallow Abraxo cleaner than drink either one of those.

26) Do you do chems?  I make chems, I don't do them. Chems are for the weak

27) Do you ever think about the Pre-War world? Often. I....miss the music.

28) What’s your deepest regret? What would you do differently? If I would have known that that Holoway girl was going to destroy everything I worked for I would have shot her back in Anchorage. I also....have some regrets over how I viewed my previous partnership. 

29) What’s your biggest achievement? Or what do you hope to achieve? My biggest achievement is my own survival. My goal is to purge the Commonwealth of all that is impure to pave the way for a more advanced group of individuals. My legacy will be to ensure that whatever’s left of humanity comes from only the best genetic stock.

30) What do you want for the future? For yourself? Your friends? The world? I want to be able to look upon the world that I have created and say “I made this happen.”

tagging: @vkm11, @catastrotaffy @coffeecogs @red-king-4, @radiationgroove, @mininuked   @theartofblossoming (only if you want to)

[sheplaysthegames]

20 Questions for Simmers

1.) Favorite Sims Game

While I have played and loved every version of The Sims, I think my absolute favorite was The Sims 2. It was the one I couldn’t put down! The little details and humor are what really stand out when I look back, and I don’t remember having any real problems with it either since the game itself was pretty solidly developed and bugs tended to be squashed quickly. Overall, I was never bored playing The Sims 2 and I still occasionally boot it up just to reminisce.

2.) Yourself in 3 Traits

Ambitious, dog lover, neat

3.) CC or No CC

I play with a small amount of CC. Everything I download is Maxis-match, and I pull pieces out whenever we get new official content that I can use instead.

4.) Preferred Part of the Game

I really like each part of the game and try to spend my time evenly among them. Lately I’ve been building and messing around in CAS more than actually playing though. Oops!

5.) Favorite Expansion Pack

In The Sims, my favorite EP was Makin’ Magic. I was so young when I played that I thought I was incredibly clever for figuring out the pattern to the spells in the dueling arena so that I’d win every time. And I had a lot of fun creating one of each type of potion and then trying them out on the poor, unsuspecting townies!

In The Sims 2, my favorite EP was Bon Voyage. I spent so much time completing every single vacation memento! Some of them were really hard to figure out too, so finishing the collection was really rewarding to me. All three of the destinations were equally fun to explore with their local dances, gestures, foods, and massages. I could really feel the difference between visiting Takemizu Village, Twikki Island, and Three Lakes.

In The Sims 3, my favorite EP was Ambitions. The firefighter career and the new inventing skill were the real highlights to me. I spent weeks creating a Simbot without cheating, and firefighting was a really exciting change from the standard rabbithole careers. Another neat feature was the ability to sculpt statues of Sims. Never-melting ice sculptures looked great in mansions, and of course stone sculptures made great monuments to ‘famous’ Sims in town.

In The Sims 4, my favorite EP (so far) is Seasons. The weather effects are beautiful, the raincoats and rainboots and umbrellas are adorable, kiddie pools are the greatest item ever created, and temperature is just such a vital addition that it's finally starting to feel like a full game for me! Seasons and weather in general also function differently in each world, which is perfect. I didn’t want snow in Oasis Springs, and Brindleton Bay desperately needed fog and rain to feel complete.

6.) Favorite Game Pack

In The Sims 4, my favorite GP (so far) is Vampires. I never really liked this life state before, but this time around they’re fantastic! The abilities help differentiate each vampire from one another, and I love that they don’t have to ask permission nicely before biting a Sim. The sticker cracks and spider webs are also something I’d been wanting to help make places seem less perfect. Overall, the life state seems so detailed and sets a much higher bar for future life states. I don’t even mind paying for each individually if they’re this well-done.

7.) Favorite Stuff Pack

In The Sims 2, my favorite SP was H&M Fashion. Honestly, I just really loved all the new clothing that kept my Sims from constantly matching each other. And building a clothing store with all the cool retail items that came with it was a lot of fun too!

In The Sims 3, my favorite SP was Town Life. The rabbitholes were more modern and added some variety since most of the others were the same building with slightly different colors. I had a lot of fun remodeling my more modern worlds with them.

In The Sims 4, my favorite SP (so far) is Laundry Day. I’m a sucker for realism elements so adding another menial chore for my Sims makes me happy. The laundry system is surprisingly complex, the furniture filled in a lacking farmhouse style I felt was missing from the game, and stackable machines look perfect in apartments. The clothing and hairstyles were also very well-done and I have to actively try not to overuse them on all my Sims.

8.) Least Favorite Expansion Pack

In The Sims, my least favorite EP was House Party. It felt like the smallest addition we were given, and parties weren’t enough for me to explore more than a handful of times before I got bored. As soon as the next EP came out, I moved on to the new content and I don’t think I ever threw another party again.

In The Sims 2, my least favorite EP was Nightlife. It wasn’t bad at all, it was just the one I used the least. My personal gameplay style at the time was incredibly family-oriented and you just don’t take your kids to clubs. I only ever went to the new Downtown subhood for first dates and a few marriage proposals since the date interactions were pretty cute.

In The Sims 3, my least favorite EP was Showtime. I don’t think I ever really played with anything from it. The ‘optional’ online connection where you would send your Sims to someone else’s game to perform really made me mad since some of the items you paid for were locked away behind it and I had no desire to participate. And the whole in-game news feed and achievement system were horrible and really caused problems. The venues were also super glitchy so even when I did give the new active careers a go, trying to complete a performance was almost impossible. Overall, the whole thing felt like more trouble than it was worth.

In The Sims 4, my least favorite EP (so far) is Get to Work. I think my expectations were just too high going into it. The active careers are okay, but none of them make me actually want to follow my Sims to work past the first few days because they get highly repetitive and there’s no real risk associated with them. The retail system also seems a bit lacking. There are very few retail items to use when building a store, although I do have to mention that the clothing mannequins are pretty cool. And actually running it is too easy since you can just instantly restock the items even if they’re unique things that you’ve made your Sims create.

9.) Least Favorite Game Pack

In The Sims 4, my least favorite GP (so far) is Spa Day. It’s not nearly as immersive as the others. There isn’t much to do outside of getting a massage or doing yoga, and both are kind of boring to do repeatedly over and over. It doesn’t expand on the gameplay nearly enough to be categorized as a GP in my opinion; I’d demote it to SP.

10.) Least Favorite Stuff Pack

In The Sims 2, my least favorite SP was Glamour Life. It added the least versatile stuff. Most of my Sims weren’t swimming in cash, so the items, particularly the clothing, were rarely used since they’d look and feel out of place. 

In The Sims 3, my least favorite SP was Katy Perry’s Sweet Treats. I didn’t even buy it and I have no idea why anyone did. The objects were all horrible and cheesy. There was literally nothing good about it. At all. Ever.

In The Sims 4, my least favorite SP (so far) is My First Pet. No matter how many times they deny it, it’s a massive money grab. The furniture set literally completes what they left incomplete in Cats & Dogs! The clothing is for the most part just recolors of what we already have! And to top it all off, there’s just one new critter. They claim four, but it’s the same thing with a different skin overlay. I am perfectly fine with some items in a pack being dependent on owning previous packs so that they can continue to expand on past content. But to release this immediately after the associated EP and for it to pretty much be the rest of the items that we were missing from said EP...certainly seems like they withheld content just to wring an extra $10 from their players. Especially since it wasn’t even mentioned in their quarterly teaser. Haven’t bought it, and will not until it’s on sale.

11.) Custom or EA / Maxis Sims

EA / Maxis Sims are the best! I adore the premades and their unique, weird stories. My favorite thing to do is make them over and put an interesting spin on their storylines while still keeping them recognizable.

12.) Households or Single Sims

Definitely households. I prefer organized chaos with lots of things going on at once! There just isn’t enough to do when there’s only one Sim.

13.)  Free Will On or Off

Free will is always firmly set to off in my game. I’m a dictator when it comes to my Sims and I make no apologies for that.

14.)  Favorite Life Stage

Toddlers. They’re just so darn cute! The expanded skill building this time around is really cool since they actually learn in discernible stages instead of all at once, and I’m still not over their ability to go up and down stairs all on their own. The little mess-makers also have some of the cutest interactions with other Sims and their environment.

15.)  Favorite Life State

Aliens. The first time I ever had a Sim abducted was in The Sims 2, and it terrified me because I had no idea what was going on and didn’t know if he was ever going to come back. Then he was finally returned and popped out an alien baby! It was just so surprising and ever since I’ve had a particular fondness for extraterrestrials.

16.) Favorite Skill

Cooking is probably my favorite skill to build. Something about getting to see what those difficult dishes look like is just fun to me. Since The Sims 4 actually includes 3 separate skills for cooking, gourmet, and baking skills I’ve been having a blast discovering all the new recipes!

17.) Ever Completed a Legacy

Only once, way back in The Sims 2. It lasted a grand total of 16 generations before I wound up making the move to The Sims 3. I’ve tried numerous times since then, but The Sims 3 was too buggy to play a single file that long and The Sims 4 is still missing a couple of key features that I’d like to have before trying again.

18.) Longest Simming Session

When I had more free time (and was significantly younger), I happily confess to wasting away a full weekend playing The Sims 2. These days I’m lucky to get a couple hours a week here and there. Ah the joys of growing up!

19.) Personal Sims Wishlist

There are a few things I’m still really missing for The Sims 4. I’m hoping universities and witches are making a comeback soon as they’re crucial to my planned storylines. Fairies, werewolves, and a beach vacation world would also be wonderful to have but they’re less important to me.

20.) Unpopular Opinion

I don’t miss the open world system from The Sims 3 at all. I’m perfectly happy trading it for every world to be connected. Every save file is a megahood and I find that preferable to a single, completely open world. I also think that it makes the game more stable for everyone, especially lower-end computers. The loading screens are worth it!

[prepare4trouble]

Star Wars Rebels fanfic - Secret Codes

Part of the Little by Little AU

Sorry it’s been so long since I updated. Honestly this would have been up a few days ago if I hadn’t had to come up with a  title. As it is, I’m not happy with it still, but I couldn’t face thinking about it for any longer!

The racetrack was busy tonight.  Across the crowd, Zeb spotted Rex standing by the edge of the track, a drink in one hand.  He was looking down on the dokma with a vague smile on his face. Not far from him, Ezra and one of the pilots he sometimes hung around with were both watching the race intently, seemingly focussed completely on what the creatures were doing, which wasn’t much at that particular moment in time. Rex didn’t seem to be with them, or with anybody really, he looked like he was simply enjoying the atmosphere.

Zeb ambled over and stood next to him, then glanced at the track. None of the dokma were even close to the finish line, and only one of them was moving in even vaguely the right direction. That didn’t seem to bother Ezra though, or his friend. They were both leaning over the track, staring down intently at the lack of action there.

Rex nodded a greeting in Zeb’s direction, then took a deep breath and sighed. “This takes me back,” he said.

Zeb glanced around. “Oh yeah? When to, the last time you were here?” He grinned at his own, admittedly not very funny, joke.

The clone smiled, probably more out of politeness than because he actually found it funny. He shook his head. “Not exactly; a little further than that. We used to set up things like this during the war. The clones did, I mean.” He looked down at the track and shook his head. “No, they were better than this, actually, and that’s not just pride talking. These dokma are probably what we’d have called a ‘0 U 4’.”

“You’d call the dokma a bunch of random numbers and letters?” Zeb frowned, confused. “I know you clones have designations like that, is it something to do with that?“

Rex chuckled and shook his head. “It wasn’t random. And our designations weren’t random either, by they way. But yeah, if we’d encountered them back then, we probably would have.  We used to call it the Lockeye scale, after the clone that came up with the idea. We’d rate the local wildlife wherever we happened to be, based on different categories: threat level, use for entertainment, use as a nutrition source… Just made it easier if things were categorized, it meant if you arrived on a world some other squadron had visited before, you could find out these things without having to work it out for yourself.”

“So you’re telling me the clone army spent their downtime categorizing wildlife throughout the galaxy?” Zeb didn’t mean to laugh, but he did it anyway.

Rex looked affronted for a moment, then smiled and shook his head. “Some of us did. Others just used the information. Not many wanted to be the guy that volunteered to eat some terrifying mystery meat just to see if they could. Of course, the Republic kept its soldiers well-fed, it wasn’t like we needed to supplement, it’s just, who doesn’t like to roast something over a campfire once in a while?”

Mystery meat. Zeb grimaced at the memory of his own experiment, when he had learned once and for all that the krykna were definitely not good to eat. Of course, he had assumed as much before he had even gone hunting, but having caught and killed one, it had seemed wasteful not to at least try.

“These guys,” Rex pointed at the dokma, “are no threat whatsoever, that’s the ‘zero’. As for use as a food source, I have no idea; don’t need to know, don’t want to know, so U is for unclassified.” He shrugged and looked at the dokma again. “The four was for entertainment value, but actually, I might downgrade them to a three, they’re pretty lacking there too.”

“Everyone seems to enjoy the races,” Zeb pointed out.

“Yeah, but I bet they’d enjoy it a lot more if there was some actual action happening on the track.”

It would be difficult to argue with that. Only one of the creatures seemed to have moved since he had last checked, but no more than a few inches, and in the wrong direction. Even Ezra and his friend seemed to have lost interest in the race and were now talking to each other while occasionally glancing around at the other spectators.

“Yeah, they’re a solid three,” Rex decided. “They’ll do, if there’s absolutely nothing else around, but if we discovered some other creature around here that actually moves, we’d be rounding them up instead in a heartbeat.”

“There are other creatures,” Zeb reminded him. “Only, I doubt they’d be too entertaining either.”

Rex let out a short, sharp laugh. “The spiders, yeah, I don’t see them scoring highly for entertainment value either. Well, unless we could set up some kind of spider-riding contest. You know, the longer you stay on the more you win, or…” he stopped, shrugged, and shook his head. “I can’t imagine people going for it.”

“Wouldn’t work anyway, you’d have to either go beyond the beacons, or switch them off and let the spiders in.” Zeb shuddered. “Personally, I prefer them to keep their distance..”

Rex laughed again. “Don’t worry, I’m not seriously suggesting it. I’d say the spiders are a ‘7 U 0’; Mid-high threat, unclassified again for food source, definitely no good for entertainment.”

Zeb grimaced in distaste. Seven seemed like too low a threat level, but maybe Rex was right, there were many more dangerous creatures out there in the universe. “Actually,” he said, “instead of that ‘U’, what rating do you give to a meat that doesn’t actually kill you, but makes you almost wish it had?”

He registered confusion, and then surprise, and then amusement in Rex’s face. “One,” he said.  “Something you want to tell me?”

“Just that you shouldn’t ask how I know,”

Rex grinned. “Hey, what you get up to in your own time is your business. But at least I know who to come to if we need to test out any other critters.”

Zeb shook his head, but didn’t bother to reply. Rex wasn’t serious. At least, he didn’t think Rex was serious.

A thought occurred suddenly. People knew about the spider hunt.  They had seen him returning, covered in… stuff. Rumors about it had swept through the base even more quickly than the news about Ezra’s sight, probably because it had been so much more obvious, and because unlike Ezra’s news, it was funny, and people could laugh about it.

For days afterward, Zeb had endured comments from anyone who dared, and sideways glances from those who didn’t. Even now, it was still on people’s minds; he could tell from the occasional subtle comment, or a glance in his direction at the mention of the krykna. People knew.

More than that, they likely knew why. He had never actually told anybody the reason for the hunt -- it wouldn’t have made any more sense to them than it did to him -- but they had to know it had something to do with the news about Ezra that had broken around the same time.

So people knew, but Rex didn’t.  Because Rex hadn’t been on the base at the time.  And if Rex didn’t know about the spider hunt, did he know about the other, far more important, news that had spread through the base that week?

As far as Zeb could remember, he hadn’t seen the clone for several weeks. He might have been around just before the news broke, but there was an equal chance he had left before. The rumors and conversation had died down now that everybody knew, and anybody who was interested had read Hera’s file.  Base gossip had moved on and claimed a new victim, and while Zeb could almost guarantee that Rex would have heard about the pilot that had been removed from duty for flying drunk, he doubted that anybody was talking about Ezra any more.

That was good, of course, but it also opened up the unthinkable possibility that Rex didn’t know.

Zeb glanced over at Ezra. The kid had moved a little closer to the two of them, but his attention appeared to be completely on the race, watching the lack of action intently again. Zeb couldn’t say anything now, not with Ezra within earshot. He wasn’t sure he should say anything anyway, it wasn’t his news to tell.

“Uh… so what was with the secret codes?” he asked instead, more to keep the conversation going, and keep it away from uncomfortable subjects, than out of any genuine interest. “Didn’t want non-clones to know which animals were good to eat?”

Rex laughed. “Not exactly. I mean, we didn’t exactly share the information publicly, but that was more down to circumstance than anything else. But in a way, yes. We didn’t want people not in the know to understand. Specifically, we didn’t always want the Jedi to know what we were saying.”

“No?”

“It was more the entertainment side of it.  You know the Jedi; they were pretty live-and-let-live over personal nutrition, but most of them weren’t the biggest fans of using creatures like that.”

Zeb snuck another glance at Ezra, still intently watching the race. “Coulda fooled me,” he said.

“Ezra’s a unique case. Kanan too, actually. Times are different now.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Zeb saw Ezra’s head jerk up at the sound of his name being spoken; the human equivalent of turning his ears to an interesting sound. He didn’t say anything, but Zeb could tell that he was listening now. Maybe he had been all along.

“It’s something to do with the Force, and connections,” Rex continued. “Jedi could… can understand other creatures in a way that you and I can’t. Some of them could even communicate with them, make them do what they wanted.”

To his side, Zeb saw Ezra turn quickly to face them. For a moment his eyes were wide with something like panic, but it quickly softened to what looked like mild concern.

Appearing not to notice Ezra’s interest in what was being said, Rex continued.  “If you’ve got a connection that deep with a creature, I guess it’d be difficult to watch someone treating them like that; making them race or fight or whatever.”

Ezra took a step toward them, inserting himself into the conversation. “But eating them was okay?” He folded his arms, grinned, then affected a dubious expression, shaking his head slowly. “Haha, I dunno Rex, these old Jedi sound like they can’t make up their minds. You probably shouldn't trust what they said about connections, sounds like a load of rubbish to me, anyway.” He paused for a breath, slouched casually and didn’t appear to relax quite as much as he wanted them to think. “Hey, so you finally got back from that mission, huh? How did it go?”

Rex blinked in surprise, either at the interruption, or the sudden change of subject.  he shrugged. “Uh, fine. thanks. Can’t really go into it though, but I’m here for a few days R&R before heading back.”

Ezra nodded and looked glum suddenly. Of course, missions were probably the last thing he wanted to talk about. Which made the question seem strange.

“Great,” Ezra said. “You know, connections with animals, they don’t really work like that; like you were saying. They’re more about understanding them, but you can’t make them do…” He stopped abruptly as his pilot friend grabbed his arm and whispered something in his ear. Ezra tensed, flashed Rex and Zeb a nervous smile, before following the pilot to the other side of the track to join with another group of people that Zeb didn’t know by name.

Rex watched them go. He leaned in a little closer and lowered his voice. “How’s he doing with everything?” he asked.

Zeb’s gaze lingered on Ezra as he laughed at some joke or comment from one of his companions. Apparently Rex had heard, that was good; at least Zeb didn’t have to tell him. He shrugged. “He’s fine,” he said. “Well, unless you manage to catch him in a rare moment of honesty.”

“Heh,” Rex’s lips twitched into the smallest of smiles and he shook his head. “He’ll be okay,” he said.

“You know that, do you?”

Rex nodded. “He’s got a great teacher,” he said. “I mean, Kanan’s no Skywalker, but he knows his stuff, especially this stuff. It probably sounds terrible to say, but from a certain point of view Ezra really lucked out.”

“You’re right,” Zeb told him with half a smile. “That does sound pretty terrible.”

“Yeah, I know. What I mean is, I never claimed to understand the Force, but sometimes it seems to know what it’s doing.”

Zeb’s grin turned into a frown. “What do you mean?” he asked, curious. “About the Force?” If it was a variation on the ‘Force gone wrong’ rumors that were still circulating, he wasn’t going to be happy. But it didn’t sound like that; this sounded like something new.

“Kanan thinks that maybe the reason he…” He stopped, and shook his head. “Doesn’t matter. Something Kanan told me, I’m not sure I believe it. I’m not sure he believes it either.” He shook his head. “Forget it; I shouldn’t have said anything.”

But he couldn’t forget it. If Rex was implying that what had happened to Kanan had been part of some masterplan… “Just make sure you don’t say it around Ezra,” he said. “That’s the last thing he needs to be thinking about. Might even be worse than the other stupid rumor I’m trying to keep away from him.” He was feeling bad enough without adding guilt into to mix.

Rex nodded. “Don’t worry, I’ll be keeping that one to myself.”

Zeb nodded, satisfied. Rex wouldn’t talk to anybody else about that, least of all Ezra. He probably wouldn’t have done anyway, but it was good to get that promise.

“I should head on out, anyway,” Rex said. “I’m supposed to meet Kanan in a bit.”

A ‘wine and whine’ session, no doubt; one of their little get-togethers that happened every so often. Or a mission debrief, or maybe some combination of the two. Zeb nodded. “Sure. It was good to catch up. I’ll see you around.”

Rex nodded. He cast a final glance over the racecourse and toward Ezra. Ezra’s back was turned and he didn’t appear to notice the scrutiny. “You don’t have to protect him, you know,” he said. “He’s survived a lot, and he’ll get through this too. He’s tougher than he looks.”

“We’ve all survived a lot,” Zeb said. “It never makes the next thing any easier.” Sometimes, it actually made it worse.

“Tough to argue with that, but still. How’d you like it if you found out someone was trying to protect you from hearing things they didn’t think you could handle?”

Zeb frowned. He wouldn't like it. But that didn’t mean it wouldn’t help. “He’s a kid,” he said. “At his age I hadn’t even entered basic training. He’s got enough going on without another thing to worry about.”

“He might be a kid, but he’s not a child,” Rex said. “Is it for us to decide what he gets to know?” He sighed. “I’ve never known anyone go through exactly this before, but I saw enough of my brothers leaving the battlefield with an injury that wasn’t going to get better, to know that the last thing anybody ever wants is to be treated differently. Even if it’s with the best of intentions.”

“That’s not what I’m doing.” Zeb told him. Or… he didn’t think that was what he was doing.

Rex nodded. “Good to hear.” He glanced around again, “Well, I’m here for a few more days, so I’ll probably see you around before I head back out. Maybe we can plan that spider riding contest, set it up as a rival entertainment source.” He appeared completely serious, except of the hint of laughter in his eyes.

With that, he turned and headed away from the track, toward the main section of the base. Zeb watched him go, then turned back to the track. His dokma was losing. Badly. Of course, the way things were going, there might be hours before the race was finished.

Zeb sighed to himself. Rex was right, on a scale of 1-10 for entertainment, the dokma definitely came out at the low end.

[dmsden]

Monster of the Month – the Owlbear

Hullo, Gentle Readers. It’s the first Monday of March, which means a Monster of the Month. And since March is my birth month, I decided to make March’s monster one of my absolute favorites – the Owlbear. Once again, thank you to Scott “K-9″ Fabianek for the awesome original art.

I unabashedly and unironically love the owlbear. Maybe it’s the kooky idea of two apex predators spliced together by mad wizardry. Or maybe it’s because I know it originated as a crappy plastic “dinosaur” toy. Something about it just utterly appeals to me.

Owlbears originate from Gary Gygax’s original D&D campaign, and they first appeared in the Greyhawk supplement for the original version of D&D. They’ve been a staple of the game ever since, appearing in every edition, as well as Pathfinder, Dungeon Crawl Classics, Castles & Crusades, and numerous video games, webcomics, and beyond. I even made sure they crossed over into our LARP, the Isles (good old Hootsie).

In its most basic form, the Owlbear is an excellent choice for a scary monster to throw at relatively low-level parties. In 5E, it’s a Challenge Rating 3 monster, so using 1 or 2 against a party of level 2 or 3 is likely to be rough and memorable. I could see local elves or gnomes hiring a party to hunt down and remove an owlbear from their forest environs.

Since they are excellent hunters and predators, they could also be attracted to a party traveling in the wilderness, stalking them and then attacking to kill and feed. It’s interesting, since bears tend to be diurnal, but owls are nocturnal. I suppose one could make them crepuscular (hunting at dawn or dusk), but the idea of an owlbear looming out of the darkness is an awfully tempting one, especially since they have darkvision.

I really like using owlbears in contrast to civilization, so having them be a bit of savagery that’s used by civilized folks to strike terror into their enemies works very well. I have used an owlbear as a scary creature in a gladiator pit, or roaming the moat or dungeon of a castle the PCs want to infiltrate. A barbarian tribe might have the owlbear as their totem and drive an owlbear into battle before they attack.

The 5e entry suggests that owlbears can be trained, and it has some great suggestions. I love the image of elves coaxing owlbears to den under a treetop village, as that makes for a terrifying run to the stairs or ladders that lead up. Owlbears as almost living war engines for hobgoblins is also a wonderful idea. The entry doesn’t suggest it, but I would almost imagine them having an eerie symbiosis with orcish hordes as well. The chaos and ferocity of the owlbear would likely appeal to orcs.

Owlbears as pets to ogres, trolls, hill giants, or frost giants also appeals. Imagine being attacked by owlbears, only to realize they’re wearing collars and being forced to wonder what’s crazy enough to keep an owlbear as a pet. I can also imagine a giant with a hunting pack of owlbears. The deep, growling hoots in the distance could be quite chilling as the pack closes in, followied by their huge master.

As a monstrosity, an owlbear could not generally be a ranger’s animal companion. But if I were DMing for someone who wanted that option, I’d probably work with them. Of course, I’d make sure the negatives of having such a creature around were commensurate with the rewards. Likewise, if a party found a clutch of owlbear eggs (I don’t know why I assume they’re egg layers, but I do) or a young owlbear, I’d make raising one damned hard but possibly worth the effort. There would have to be some stunning Animal Handling rolls to teach it anything basic, including, “Don’t eat the rest of the party!”

With owlbears existing in your campaign world, consider how the people might have adopted them into their art and culture. I like the idea of the owlbear appearing in the heraldry of a noble house to show ferocity in battle. A quick search for owlbear heraldry yields a couple of great images, including a heraldic crest with an “owlbear rampant”. In my own D&D campaign, I used the “Owlbear Company” as a military company made up of various folks who didn’t fit anywhere else, including my player characters. And of course, there have got to be taverns with names like “The Owlbear’s Roost” and “The Drunken Owlbear.”

If you haven’t used owlbears recently, I do recommend considering giving them some spotlight time. They are a very versatile critter that is pure D&D. If you have a cool way you’ve used owlbears before, let us know!

[surveys-at-your-service]

Survey #470

“how can you choose to let the blind see better than you?”

What was the main character called in the last film you watched? Dewey. What would you name your pet snake if you had one? It would depend on its appearance. The snake I have now is named Venus because of her coloration. Do you like peanuts? Only if they're covered in chocolate or in granola bars in small portions. Have you ever gambled? What was your biggest loss/win? No. What was the last movie you watched? Who did you watch it with? Girt and I watched School of Rock together. What do you eat for breakfast? Excluding the rare occasions my mom cooks something, usually cereal or a sandwich. Do you have a Flickr? I do, but it's abandoned. Anything exciting happening in the month of September? No. When was the last time you had an ice cream sandwich? Oh man, it's been too long. I really want one now. Do you eat breakfast daily? Yeah. What was the last thing to scare you? "Scare" is a strong word, but I was very, very nervous to hear what weight I'd gained since my last doctor's appointment. Do you like mustard? Yeah, I do. Do you have a desktop computer or laptop? A laptop. Do you like to play Jenga? I guess? I don't really have an opinion on it. Do you like Fresca? Not very, but I'll drink it if I really want a soda and it's the only option. How many towels do you use after a shower? Just one. Would you ever flash a cop if you knew you'd get out of a ticket? Um, no thank you. What is your favorite thrill ride ever? I don't like those. I'm afraid of puking or fainting. Biggest irrational fear? Truly irrational, probably whale sharks. Favorite movie sequel? Hm. If you had endless funds, where would you buy most of your clothes? Cloak and Rebel's Market. How many jobs have you had? Three, technically. What is your favorite thing to do in your city? Oh hun, fun doesn't exist here. This place sucks. Have you ever gone strawberry picking? Ha ha, yes... but I was a little kid that absolutely gorged on the strawberries instead of putting them in my basket. The person that worked there didn't make my mom pay for what I did or anything, but they made a joke about weighing me to check the damage I did, ha ha. My face was COVERED in strawberry juice. I wish I could actually remember the occasion, but I was too young. How many times have you seen a doctor this month? It feels like a lot. >_< I had to get blood drawn for two different things on separate appointments, I had a follow-up appointment with my primary physician about my weight, I recently spoke to my therapist and psychiatrist... Could you pull off orange hair? I've actually considered like, a light creamsicle orange. I actually edited a photo of me with my current hair style trying different colors, and that tint looked pretty cute. Do you shave your legs? It sounds dumb, but yes, now that I'm in a relationship. I feel obligated to at least try and be attractive by societal standards. I know it seriously doesn't matter, but I would be so inexplicably mortified if he saw my unshaven legs kalsdj;flkasdjwe What type of weather is your favorite? Snowy! Coolest place you've ever been? Disney World, probs. Do you like corn on the cob? Yeah, man. Have you ever waited tables? No. Build your favorite pizza. Soft pan crust, your average amount of sauce and a good amount of cheese with various meats on it. What did you last get fancy for? I wouldn't say I got like, super fancy, but I wore a nice shirt and a necklace when Girt came over for the first time as a couple. I thought we were actually leaving the house to go out to dinner, but the plan was actually to have Buffalo Wild Wings delivered. It was totally fine by me, I'd just misunderstood. Dream pet? A female Brazilian Black tarantula named Black Betty. :') Do you tend to get clingy in relationships? I know I do. What is the last horror movie you watched? It's sad that I don't know. :( Would you be grossed out if your best friend mooned you? No, I'd just be extremely confused lmao. What is the last thing that you drank? Milk. Currently popular song that you can't stand? I have zero idea what songs are popular right now. What is the weather like right now? Too fuckin' hot to be mid-September. Do you have favorite type/brand of pen? I mean, I like the feel of gel pens. I don't know about brands. What is your go-to snack at the convenience store? Some form of Reese's. Popular drink that you dislike? Coffee shocks the most people. What TV show are you waiting on to return/create a new season? None. What is something you currently want but cannot afford? Oh, dear. -_- Do you have sensitive skin? Very. How many toilets are in your house? Two. Do you have an older sister? Three that I know, one that I don't really count because I know nothing about her and have never spoken to her. What color is your mum’s car? White. Do you live in an apartment? No. Cats are usually cuter than dogs right? Kittens are generally cuter than puppies, imo. Where do you keep your kitty litter box? It has to stay in my bedroom, which I hate. Mom insists on in being in here so I don't forget to clean it. My memory is awful, but I'm preeeetty sure I'd remember to give my cat a clean place to use the bathroom if it was kept in the spare room by the door... Are you rude to little children? No; even if I don't really like kids, that is something I definitely avoid. Kids should never lose their hope in or love for humanity, and I would absolutely hate to be one of those people that makes the human race appear unpleasant. Are you a lighter complexion than your father? BY FAR. He's a mailman so is out in the sun nearly every day, so he's pretty damn dark to be Caucasian. I wouldn't be surprised if by his complexion he's ever been mistaken for being Hispanic, because the color definitely fits. Do you like apricots? No. Are banana chips delicious? Ew, that sounds gross. Do you like kinky sex? I wouldn't know, my dude. I've never really explored outside of pretty vanilla stuff. What is one thing you will never do again? Rely solely on another person for happiness. Would you rather be twice as smart or twice as happy? Twice as happy. That's not even a competition. What would your parents be surprised to learn about you? I very legitimately wonder if I would be disowned for how fucked up some of the shit I write is, ha ha. Mom would probably cry if she saw some of even the milder stuff and force the topic to come up in therapy. If you could have been a child prodigy what would you have wanted to be skilled at? Maybe painting? If earth could only have one condiment for the rest of time, what would you pick to keep around? Hmmm... I suppose ketchup. Do you think it’s important to stay up to date with the news? I think it is, but I don't. .-. What is the best present you could ever receive? An all-expenses-paid trip to South Africa to visit and tour with the Kalahari Meerkat Project to meet and photograph the meerkats. :''''''''''') Would you give up one of your fingers if it meant you’d have free WiFi wherever you go, for the rest of your life? Nah. That's what data is for, lol. If someone told you you could give one person a present and your budget was unlimited–what present would you get and for whom? A new car for Mom. Giant house in a subdivision or tiny house somewhere with a view? Oh, that is SO easy. Give me the view. Well wait, HOW tiny is the house? My answer would change if it was one of those truly mini houses that would make me feel claustrophobic as shit. What was your favorite Disney movie as a kid? The Lion King. Still is. Do you brush your teeth in the bathroom, or do you get bored & roam around? I roam around. Does your city/town have a little festival/carnival every year? Yes. I never really pay attention tho 'cuz I never go. Have you ever been to an apple orchard? No, but I would love to go. Were there any cartoons your parents didn’t let you watch as a kid? Except "adult" cartoons obviously, no. Could you handle motherhood? No fucking way. Being entirely serious, I think I'd either end up dead or horribly depressed, and the kid psychologically damaged to some extent from having an unstable mother. Like do not get me wrong, I'd try very hard, but I know I couldn't stay sane and happy as a mom. Have you ever touched a squirrel? No. What's better, candles or incense? Incense. What movie did you see the most in theaters? I don't watch movies in theaters twice. It's expensive to go even once. Who played the best Batman? Idk. I didn't watch all the movies. Who’s the best American Idol thus far? *shrug* What’s likely to happen next in your family - wedding, funeral, or birth? Uh, I suppose a wedding? None seem likely any time soon. Do you like hot, cold, or lukewarm showers? Hot. Have you ever taken part in a threesome? No, not my jam. Do you plan on having both your parents at your wedding? Yep. Which movie’s musical score is truly memorable? Tarzan came to mind very quickly. What’s your favorite scene from the movie Titanic? Idk, I've only seen it once. Which TV show theme music do you remember most? That '70s Show. Have you ever bounced any checks? ... I don't even know what that means. :x Have you ever been snipe hunting? I will never in my life hunt in any way, shape, or form. Do you try to be politically correct? For the most part, but I do believe it's gone too far. Generally though, I try to conform to the "rules" to avoid offending someone. What’s your favorite kind of sea critter? Bottlenose dolphins, various types of whales, sea turtles... I don't think I could pick one. Have you ever tasted locally-made honey before? Does it count if it's from a honeysuckle flower? Do you like to wear toe socks? No, they're mad uncomfortable imo. Have you ever worn bright red lipstick? Yes. Do you think raccoons are adorable, like I do? BABIES!!!!!!!!!!!