#what other things can be piebald

[afterplaidshirtdays]

I’m not looking for which is CORRECT, I’m looking for what do YOU say

[headspace-hotel]

I looked up some stuff about the "domestication syndrome" in animals because I read a couple times in books the idea that domesticated animals are neotenous, meaning they retain juvenile traits into adulthood. The idea being that humans have essentially created more helpless, more exploitable versions of wild animals to "dominate" and abuse nature.

I thought, "Okay, that sounds like something that couldn't be proven. How much do we even know about the juvenile brain development of, say, wild goats or boars, anyway?"

So I found this review of the literature that goes back to the fur farm fox domestication study and it's even worse than I thought: We don't even know that a 'domestication syndrome' in animals exists at all, let alone whether it is a retention of juvenile traits into adulthood.

So the fur farm fox domestication study: you may have heard of it, it claimed to have demonstrated that within a few generations, by selecting for tameness, the researchers bred "domesticated" foxes with a whole suite of traits that appear in many domesticated animals but seem unrelated to tameness, such as piebald coloration and floppy ears. The idea is that the genes for tameness and for these other traits commonly seen in domestic animals are linked, that is, an animal that inherits one is likely to inherit the other.

There's some major problems. First of all, all the foxes used in the study were from fur farms, and had already been selected for some level of docility and for coat color variation. The foxes didn't get white spots on them because they were selected for tameness, instead the pre-existing population they were selected from had those genes in it to begin with. Also, the effective population size of the foxes in the study was pretty small, meaning a small amount of genetic drift could have a big impact.

Second, there isn't very much evidence for most of the "domestication syndrome" traits in most animals. Even where the "domestication syndrome" traits can be found, they are often particular to specific breeds, and it's unclear whether they are linked to domestication as such or just the development of that specific breed.

This study only deals with a few animals, mostly small animals. It would be even more interesting to see a breakdown of even more animals (particularly more large animals). Off the top of my head, almost none of these would apply to horses, and only in specific cases would apply to cattle. Even in dogs, extreme changes in skull morphology have happened relatively recently with breeders in modern times going after extreme phenotypes.

Particular to cats: extreme skull changes and floppy ears occur as part of some "breeds" because they are specific painful genetic disorders that breeders of cats decided to perpetuate VERY recently. Scottish Folds were deliberately developed from cats that just so happened to have a disease that causes them to be in constant suffering due to their messed up joints, it's not just a variation that regularly pops up in cats to varying extents. Likewise with the smushed-face Persians. Their brains are getting squished into where their spinal cords should go because their skulls are so messed up from selective breeding for an extreme look.

What domestication means has been majorly shaken up in the past hundred years. With companion animals, breeders are in a race to make the most screwed up animal with the most extreme, striking traits possible, and with livestock animals, lots of heritage breeds with more variations have straight up gone extinct because they've been flattened into industrial monocultures to produce meat and milk as efficiently as possible, health and genetic diversity be damned.

To study domestication itself, you would have to study landrace breeds, right?

Basically there isn't one thing that domestication is

[pillowdrawz]

HAMATO'S EXORCISM AU.

{Hello there This scroll if you are wondering what this is. This is the Hamatos Exorcism! We Exorcism or defeat demons,monsters, evil magical beings you named it! This scroll is scattered in any universe and held by your Mutated ninja turtles. And yours only if it is hold by a evil person it will be shredded.}

[Assuming you already know each colour, each of us are! Red is raph, Blue is for Leo, Purple is for Donnie and FINALLY Orange is for Mikey they are the Hamato symbol with different colours! There is also Master Splinter, Cassandra, April, Piebald and CJ!]

=If the Hamato Symbol Glows meaning we are available if not We are doing our own thing. Please do not bother us!=

(Anyway Just tap the coloured symbols if you're in trouble with any mystical beings and We will be at your service. The payment just gets us back home with the same scroll. That is all and Thank you!)

(THE CLOTHES IS INSPIRED BY MICHIKOSKETCH FROM TWITTER )

Based of this Post! <<By @help-i-need-a-cool-username

I was inspired to create this Au.

But other universe can handle themselves like 2012 and 2003 etc okay but what if it's set on season 1 and The rise fam are older meaning BIG BROTHER RISE FAM LETS GO!.

ANOTHER post/Lore-

(Yes that's one of the reason cause I want Big brother Rise fam The main reason is for fun for my shitz and giggles lololol )

[ilk-insolence]

Leo Analysis

There’s a popular reading in the Rise fandom that Leo is the strategist of his brothers, but I’d like to propose a counter-theory that, while Leo can be strategic, his actual skillset is in deception, manipulation, and perception. In other words, Leo is good at things involving people.

(Hey, uh, this is pretty long)

In the show, Leo shows a preference to following others’ leads rather than strategize himself. In One Man’s Junk, Leo is the only brother that doesn’t actually think up a plan to find more mystic metal, instead picking sides on who’s plan he thinks is better. This is seen again in Late Fee, where Raph and Donnie being the ones who formulate a plan to return the DVD. Again, in the season 2 finale, E-Turtle Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (god that is long), Leo doesn’t come up with a plan to defeat the Shredder, he instead made everyone turn to Raph for one [2:15]. This all follows a pattern that Leo admits in Battle Nexus: New York, "And we'll do it with our special brand of teamwork: where my brothers do the work but we share equal credit" [1:10]. He’s very lazy (I mean this affectionately), and prefers to follow someone else’s lead. The final nail in the coffin is the movie, where Leo is very distinctly not the one who comes up with the plan to lock away the Kraang. While admittedly that moment is from him learning to build others up rather than try to do everything himself, Leo is clearly characterized to not tend to strategize.

However, there are episodes where he does plan. A notable example being Many Unhappy Returns, where Leo planned ahead around Big Mama to trick her into giving them the mystic collar. Another is The Hidden City Job, where Leo pretended to be a statue to get into Big Mama’s vault in her auction. There’s also Origami Tsunami, where Leo briefly took the leader position, and planned the fake paper shop to catch the paper thieves. Smaller examples include, Man Vs Sewer (two attempts of snapping Raph out of his savage state), Bug Busters (freeing his brothers), and the movie (teleporting Kraang Prime into the portal). However, one commonality in all those schemes is that they’re all deceptions (okay, except for Man Vs Sewer but I have a whole other reason for that). In Many Unhappy Returns, Leo isn’t so much as being strategic but manipulative, understanding who Big Mama is, foreseeing that she’ll shove him in the arena with his dad, and planning around that by appearing stupid. He tricked her into cutting a deal in his favor (allowing him to have a weapon in the arena [17:25]). In The Hidden City Job, Leo’s plan is basically tricking Big Mama again, pretending to be something valuable enough to belong in her vault (almost worked too well there). Origami Tsunami, Leo surmised that the bad guys would want more paper and created the fake paper store. All of those plans involved tricking the opponent based on what Leo understood of them, and they worked. Of course, planning moves around an opponent could be qualified as strategic, but these events highlighted Leo’s skill in reading and manipulating others, not as a tactician.

Again, I’m not saying Leo can’t be strategic. In Flushed But Never Forgotten, Leo’s plan to fighting Piebald is to camouflage himself with sewer sludge (gross). That’s strategic. In Bug Busters, Leo distracting the guards with an empty laundry bin to trip them into a portal he created behind them is strategic. Leo’s whole stunt with Kraang Prime and teleporting them both into the portal was sick as shit, and strategic. Hell, his whole power with the teleporting/portals requires Leo to think tactically. But, in comparison with his brothers, particularly Raph, Leo doesn’t seem that much better than them at strategizing.

What Leo is characterized to be, is manipulative. Two main examples are Air Turtle and the infamous Lair Games, where, in both, poor Donnie gets tricked by Leo to do something for Leo’s benefit. In both stunts, the emphasis was put on to Leo’s deceptive nature. In the Lair Games, Leo intentionally put his room up as a prize with the knowledge that his brothers wanted to take something important away from him, hiding the fact that that was exactly what he wanted [12:45]. In Air Turtle, he lied to Donnie’s face that he could make the last shot in order to get his own opening/spotlight [10:16, and 11:14]. Unlike with strategizing, these events are made out to be points of distinction for Leo. He’s also shown to be extremely perceptive, as @/our-happygirl500-fan user pointed out in their post of him realizing Splinter had some history with Big Mama. And being the only one to suspect Raph throwing his fight with Donnie in Sparring Partner [9:54]. This all lines up with Leo's role as a faceman, somebody who's good with people. Combined with his performance in Many Unhappy Returns, Leo is shown to be someone extremely skilled in deception, and reading others.

Tldr, I think Raph is the strategist of the group, closely followed by Donnie. And Leo’s actual strength lies in his ability with people, his perception and manipulation. He’s not a strategist, but a trickster. A lying liar who lies (I love him).

Of course, I could be extremely wrong so I would love any input or commentary, especially regarding Leo's strategist status, because I could be glaringly missing something. Thanks.

[ruija]

HOKAY, I'm done with work, time to gush about turtle comics.

Putting it under read more so I don't spoil anyone.

Wowie! The future turtles are from the GOOD TIMELINE. That's interesting!! I wouldn't put too much weight on the designs, tbh. The whole comic is clearly drawn pretty hastily, and seems like Andy mostly just took the designs from the movie. They look way too old for being barely in their 40s, especially if they didn't have to live in an apocalypse for 20 years.

But ofc other stressful things can happen in two decades. Raph's lost an eye and arm huh. The present Raph has the rips on his mask, but no eyepatch, so maybe his sight got worse over time? (most likely Andy was just drawing whatever, and there's no deeper thought behind it lol. But we can have fun)

LMAO the truth comes out! Future Donnie's bad fashion sense was not a product of the Kraang Apocalypse. Man just decided to wear that.

Ah, Leo-angsters are getting fed again. Your own mystics betray and strand you in unknown universes, away from family for months, and once you come back your dad has died? Whooof! And relatively soon after the Kraang invasion? Whooof x2!

Mikey can just willy-nilly create time portals now? Huh. And they're friends with Renet!!!! Guess she taught him to do this stuff less costly.

FRIDA!!!! A design for her! A reunion! that's fun! <3

The Leos interacting is pretty cute.

I CAN'T BELIEVE SPLINTER IS FUCKING DEAD

Honestly, I'm cracking up, what the hell.

"Ohh, my dear family, thank you for everything. Farewell... Oh, and you have some long lost siblings lol" *dies*

Rip Splints, trolling until the end o7

Sweet to see Piebald, both Caseys and Draxum all present. And Draxum became their stay-at-home-dad in the future? That's cute :D I like the "Draxum steps up as a dad, after Splinter passes" trope in fics. (I guess Todd also lives with them....? lol)

"See you in a few years." "Hard pause" instead of The end.

HELLO??? HELLO??!?! !!!!!!!!!!!!

Gosh, the Rise comic was such a treat. It's pretty chaotic and idk how canon you can consider it as, but Andy crammed so many interesting plotty things into just 8 pages! Really fun and delicious tidbits for us to play with heehee!

Not to mention the very hopeful ending, possibly hinting for a come-back ;;;____;;;; OOOOHHHHH I am on my knees, begging.

I was also very excited for the 2003 comic, but that ended up being mostly eye candy and vibing. Not to say, I wasn't incredibly fond and happy to see the 2k3 turtles again <3 They look so good, oh my babygirls, all of them!! (brb I'm also low-key crying at how Splinter describes his sons)

[fushipurro]

Red Lights Red Flags

Chapter 2 - Marigold

<- Previous Chapter | Masterlist | Next Chapter ->

☆ Content: 18+ MDNI, f!reader, ronin!toji, courtesan!reader, jjk historical au, mentions of death/assault, forced prostitution, fluff, pet names, past trauma, angst, hurt/comfort

☆ Word Count: 1.6k

Winter had come and settled in fast, marking yet another month you’ve lived as a courtesan.

Snow piled in the streets and the number of guests that come by have lessened as many decide it best to stick to the comfort of their own homes instead of the arms of a prostitute. Putting your debt aside, you’re content with the calm, only hoping it doesn’t turn to a proverbial storm.

The light of dawn reflects beautifully off the falling snow with iridescent tones, a sight you share with Toji at your side. He’s become a regular client of yours, nearly every night if he’s able. He hasn’t pushed your boundaries, nor forced himself on you which to some may come off as disinterest, but not when we’re dealing with Toji. It’s the opposite really, it just shows the respect he has for you.

“Hey Toji?” He hums in response. “Has the lake frozen over yet? The one by the big plum tree in the park?”

He glances at you from the side with a raised brow. “Yeah,” he pauses for a moment, “Bunch of kids already running the place.”

“Good, I’m glad.” You smile, and he turns his head to you in full as if waiting for something more. “My family used to take us there many years ago…” You raise a pickled plum up from the dish to your mouth, savoring the taste. “…I miss those times.”

Toji returns his gaze to the window, looking beyond the snow-kissed rooftops to a destination unknown.

“Yeah.”

With the arrival of a new season, Hanami has decided to dedicate today to having the brothel cleaned top to bottom, all hands on deck (save for her prized flowers, as always).

The Peony herself is still very much annoyed with you, but with a Zenin as your client more often than not, it’s given you some wiggle room in avoiding her wrath. There’s also a rumor that she’s found a new “toy” to play with that’s been keeping her occupied. That’s a good thing, right?

Your day so far has been filled with nothing but washing what feels like every robe this building contains. Fabric after fabric of the most well-designed pieces, some worth more than the debt your father’s accumulated. A voice calls out to you by name from a woman in blue, “Whenever you have a moment, Shion’s requested to see you.”

Shion?

The Aster herself?

To say you’re surprised is putting it lightly. Fear inevitably bubbles up like stomach bile as you remember the last time a high-ranked flower requested your presence. At least it’s not Botan this time around, but you know next to nothing about Shion.

“I’ll be there soon!” you tell the woman who promptly takes her leave. You know better than you keep someone of the Aster’s status waiting, so you quickly work to finish the task at hand.

Similar to the Peony Room, the Aster Room’s doors are painted with many blue and white flowers to match her color scheme. You kneel before the doors, announcing yourself.

“Enter,” she replies, with an elegant tone in her voice. When you peel the doors back, you’re met with an equally elegant, mature woman resting by the windows at her bedside. “Come, sit closer to me.”

In the sunlight, her hair is revealed as a blue so pale, it’s almost like ice on a frozen river. A piebald crow is perched on the windowsill, paying no mind to your movements to sit before the woman.

The other courtesans don’t talk about Shion as often, only noting her outward beauty and skill as a courtesan. There are also some deeper rumors that say she’s a witch of some sorts. Nevertheless, she maintains a high status, even compared to the likes of Botan.

She turns to address you in full, eyeing you up with sharp, purplish eyes. Each look she spares feels akin to talons tearing away any façade you may be attempting to hold.

She hums, “Yes, I can see what the fuss has been about lately with you.”

“I’m sorry for bringing you trouble, Shion.” You bow, expecting her to be upset in favor of her near equal.

“Trouble? Nonsense.” she snickers, and you raise your head up in shock. “You’ve made this place much more interesting to me in recent times.”

Now you’re completely thrown off and confused. “You’re not upset with me?”

“Not in the slightest.” Shion reaches forward, cupping your chin with delicate fingers. She leans forward, all while the crow behind her hops to the side. “In fact, I’m glad someone can give Botan a much-needed reality check. It’s for her own good, and yours as well.”

“I don’t wish to offend, but I’m not understanding what you mean…”

She releases her hold on your face. “Don’t stress over it, all that matters is that you found someone special in your short time being here. I wish to help cultivate that.”

Your brain is working overtime in trying to comprehend what’s going on. Everything she’s saying is like a riddle to you, or maybe these are just the magic words of a supposed witch.

“I wish to claim you for my garden,” she says with a confident look, but those words leave your mouth agape at the meaning.

In this specific brothel, gardens are what refers to those chosen by high-ranking courtesans to act as their lady-in-waitings while continuing their work. The difference is that it earns you the nickname of a flower, boosting your significance while also granting special inclusions.

“Are you sure you wish to pick someone like me? There must be better–"

“Don’t sell yourself short now,” she interrupts. “You have a bright future ahead of you, and it’s my duty to make that happen. It’s in both of our best interests for you to accept.”

You lower your head into a bow once more. “I humbly accept your invitation, Shion.”

“You’ve made a wise decision, my little Marigold.”

She brings her hand down upon the crown of your head, softly caressing your hair as a distant memory flashes through your mind of your own mother doing this for you. A few stray tears fall from your eyes onto the tatami, treasuring the newfound acceptance.

“Be proud of yourself, and soon you’ll shine like gold. I promise you that.”

“Thank you, Shion.” You sniffle, raising your eyes to her with a gleeful smile.

The crow caws, stretching its wings before taking flight to the heavens above, leaving behind a two-colored feather on the wooden frame.

The following night, business was up and running like normal. Guests arrive intermittently should the weather allow, and you spend your time at first idling with your new chores for Shion. You were expecting Toji to have arrived already to save you from any other possible client, but so far he hasn’t come by.

You feel a tap on your shoulders, drawing you out of your reverie. “Shion is requesting your assistance.”

Your heart sinks, but the night is early so maybe he’ll come by later. When you arrive at the Aster Room, you’re wearing the new kimono prepared to you by Shion. This one is brightly colored compared to the dull, tattered robes you wore before. The fabric adorned with marigolds colored after the sun, befitting of your new imagery title.

On normal occasions, you would be wearing blue to separate you from Shion’s status, but she’s requested you wear this piece handpicked by her own self. She even spent the time perfecting your hair and makeup in a similar style of her own, and you’ve never felt more beautiful.

“I knew this robe would be perfect for you, my little Marigold.” She smiles softly, like a proud mother. You admire yourself in the mirror, but you can’t help but wonder what Toji would say if he could see you now. “Are you falling in love?” Shion abruptly asks, as if reading your mind is another one of her unique talents.

Her question has you blushing. “L-love? I uh.. I-I mean he’s really kind…”

“Is that all?” She chuckles, and you hide your face behind your hands. “Are you sure it’s not something more?”

Even if it was, would Toji feel the same? It’s one thing to make you feel safe and respected or the time he takes to ensure you’re eating and sleeping properly, but falling in love this fast? There are still so many unknowns.

You ponder her words throughout the night as she entertains her clientele. She’s left you in charge of setting the mood with your musical talents, the peaceful serenade of the Koto becoming a symbol for you.

As the night comes to an end with the light of dawn soon approaching, Toji still hasn’t made his arrival, and you can’t help but worry. That fear turns to something more, like poison brewing in your stomach when you hear some passing gossip.

“I heard they were splayed out all over the place with their heads cleanly removed.”

“That’s brutal… hope they catch the guy before there’s a fifth victim.”

“Who knows, rumor has it it’s that one Zenin. Ya know, the one with the scar?”

“Oh yeah, that monster of a son? I’m sure he’ll get off easy from his status alone.”

You stop dead in your tracks, paralyzed and feeling unable to breathe. With wide eyes, you stare at the men leaving the establishment. It takes everything in you to get your legs moving again before you’re rushing to your new private room. Once inside, you collapse to the ground with trembling limbs.

There’s little doubt that they aren’t referring to Toji, and you wonder if this is why he skipped his visit tonight. Trouble’s brewing, and you know it, but you’re powerless to do anything about it so long as you’re confined to this brothel.

Please be safe, Toji.

☆ Notes: originally I thought of shion as mei mei but..... ew, let's leave that for the plot. there's some hidden details too with asters and marigolds some of you might pick up on, and some deeper tones with marigolds reflecting y/n's character and life. i love flower language.

☆ Taglist: @fandomtrash5092 @catmania-choco

[creatingblackcharacters]

Question; the issue with depicting POC with light hair/eyes is when it's used to make them Speshul or supposedly prettier, not when it's a sincere attempt to represent albinism, piebaldism, or mixed-race genes happening to come out that way, right? My group's megafic has a few and we've been accused of racism over it, but apart from the fact that we're not trying to use the colouration to single them out (except in negative ways because it's about bad things happening to people and anyone who looks different is more likely to be targeted) and we have many POC characters with lots of screentime and dark hair/eyes... it's a fanfic. We didn't choose what the characters look like. In some cases we made POC-coded animal/monster characters with light-coloured fur into humans with that hair colour (Wilt the red monster-thing from Foster's Home, the yellow lionesses from Lion King) and maybe there's a point there, but we didn't choose to make Misty from Pokemon a Japanese green-eyed redhead human, the Japanese artists who made her did. (And red-brown hair's not even uncommon for the Ainu, FYI.) We also did portray some of them with dyed hair or coloured headgear, but it seems weird for this person to call us out for the handful we didn't... I don't know, they might have a point because Vitani (aforementioned lioness becoming blonde African girl) ended up as the group's fave character to write but it's not BECAUSE she has light hair. Maybe it'd help if we put more focus on the health issues albinism and piebaldism can cause so it's less "just aesthetics"? Do we have any obligation to redesign canon characters to look more """"normal""""? That seems off to me, but I'm white and aware I could be missing something.

Gotta be honest, this is a lot 😅 okay, I feel like I need some more context. Do you have a link to this megafic? Are there potentially any other patterns occurring in this story amongst your writing group that might be leading to this person's accusations? What are those "bad things" happening to the "people who look different"?

Because yes, sincere attempts and a purposeful message are one thing, and just thinking that light eyes are prettier is another. But I'm also always saying "it's the thought that counts, but the action that delivers" for a reason! I also don't like discounting accusations of racism as overreaction, when they are so often dismissed altogether, so I'd want to know more about both perspectives.

[pearlcatcher-problems]

a few finished projects that I've been vibing with a lot! and their bonus lore rambles under the cut to keep things a little more trim ; w;

» the wives [ Padparadscha | Bunanuhnanuh ]

antique jaguar ᛜ ginger breakup ᛜ terracotta koi bronze piebald ᛜ white basic ᛜ terracotta koi

» the twins [ Naberius | custard ]

stone piebald ᛜ white basic ᛜ spruce koi tarnish pharaoh ᛜ white basic ᛜ brown basic

» acolyte goblin ambassador [ moss ]

white basic ᛜ obsidian paint ᛜ hickory koi

I swear I'm normal about naming dragons-- I'll have serious names alongside dumb meme ones and treat them equally as seriously as characters. I swear, it makes sense in my lair. I promise.

» the wives [ Padparadscha | Bunanuhnanuh ]

Pad and Bun are wives, with Bun being the elegant airhead and Pad being the gruff behemoth. Pad is near twice Bun's size and tends to be more protective/defensive than the wildclaw is. Her pearl tends to stay with Bun when not in her pearl pouch, who keeps it in one of her silk scarves padded with dry moss and lavender sprigs.

The two of them are residing in the Bazaar, currently travelling between there and the Oasis to finalise some trade agreements before the encampments decide to make proper paths between them. While Bun is more than happy to keep the conversation for the two of them, Pad is just.... always listening. The pearlcatcher beast somehow always seems to know what is going on and can quickly get the answer to the most obscure questions if given enough time to think. This includes knowledge from any of their other outposts, somehow able to just.... know. ( Behind the scenes, she's actually a fraction of a hydra, and despite them being split, they are still able to communicate telepathically with each other, resulting in easy relay of information between allied outposts nearly instantly but the only one who controls/knows of this is Quail. )

Bun used to be part of the Roost outpost, which is why her namesake is so strange compared to the desert-dwellers. She's kept her name, although able to change it any time given how Roost customs are, and finds some joy in how hers and Pad's mirror each other in length. Those close to her may call her Bun or Bana, although Pad tends to call her Sprig, Sweetbean, and other soft little nicknames. When relaxing, Pad often gnaws on Bun's horns when cuddling to keep her tusks in check, something Bun doesn't mind as her horns constantly grow regardless.

» the twins [ Naberius | custard ]

The youngest of the Acolytes ( a subterranean clan that only emerges for three weeks a year and spends the rest of the year worshiping the Solstice trio I / II / III and tunnelling. More Info on them is heeeeeere! ) They have the same affliction post-hatchling that ogi and his younger sibling do, where they just haven't progressed further physically or mentally. They have a lot of inherent volatile magics because of what they are, but they can't always act on it in the way they want due to whatever is stunting them. This leaves the two a little hard to predict, scrapping as often as they'd play, all while leaving arcs of fulgurite along the tunnels from their warring elements.

They are often underfoot, eager to help tunnelling efforts and harvesting lichen, but are easy to tire out and will just nap wherever they run out of energy. It's not uncommon to find both of them blocking a tunnel because they need a quick powernap. Good luck moving them.

Naberius and custard's energy came from an old elemental, also named Naberius, who decayed on the Acolyte border after leaving the bounds of the Oasis. The two spawned from his fall and have many of his powers, but with the stunt and divide between them, it is just a grain of what it used to be. Sezha knew what they grew from, and decided to keep Naberius' name for one as a way to honour his fall, while casket was allowed to name the other, resulting in the mock-roost name: custard.

» acolyte goblin ambassador [ moss ]

Moss is the 'ambassador' for the Acolytes when they're out of the ground, or when dealing with people who come to 'trade' ( drop gifts and supplies, they don't actually want anything from the Acolytes in exchange and are just encouraged to do so by Quail and repaid for it in other ways ) at the outposts' entrance during their submerged seasons. She loves the idea of bartering and making a trade, only really knowing how trade works from her few visits to the Oasis grounds and seeing the elementals make pacts.

When trading, she wears The Hat. The hat is a combination of a few hats she's traded for over the years, worn around the edges and lovingly cared for. She often puts feathers, gemstones, or dried flowers tucked into the brim for flair, and will outright refuse to accept offers from other outposts if she can't get her claws on her hat at that time. All business MUST be done with the hat.

When not being Very Important, she spends most of her time tunnelling and setting up the lighting system in the deeper section of the lair. The Acolytes currently use a lighting method that leeches off the ley lines beneath them, giving them an easy method to track the health of the flow of magic and know when their worship is required. These free-floating orbs can be placed at any area of the lair as long as they're still connected to the earth, and so often will be rooted to the walls with vining plants from handsome's farm.

[bonefall]

Clanmew Masterpost

Clanmew is a constructed language made for Warrior Cats that I, @bonefall, run with my buddy @troutfur! I make the vocab and he does the grammar. I hope that this post will become a good, central place to keep links to everything we've done so far.

CURRENT VERSION: 1.0 LAST UPDATE: 6/3/2023

Clanmew is an OSV-order language, made with the sounds cats make in mind. "Base Clanmew" is built around the Clan Culture updates of the Better Bones AU, which means it is made with the ecology of southwestern Northern England in mind and only contains words for plants and animals found there. It also has phrases for cooking and crafting.

(specific regions modeled: Lancashire, Chester, Manchester, Merseyside, Clwydd is modeled for river biomes specifically)

You are free to use it for your own projects! We encourage you to consider how this language would evolve in your Clan's history, and add or remove words to make a dialect that reflects the culture's feelings and needs.

THE BASICS:

Everything you need to know for basic structure is in CLANMEW 101. Start here.

We have a constantly updating LEXICON of all the words we have made so far.

Have you made a dialect? Let me know and I can link you here so others can see what you're doing with it!

Below the cut:

In-universe information; How Clanmew evolved linguistically

"Expansion Pack" posts where I discuss etymology

Pronunciation stuff (until I make that IPA chart I keep promising)

Working translations; Names, parables, OC submissions

Dialect submissions (These are manned by other people!)

Historical Trivia

The linguistic evolution of Clanmew from Old Tribemew and Parkmew

Animals are named for the sounds they make.

How pronouns for objects change based on how the speaker feels about it.

More, using human examples

there is a secret post about cursing but you have to find that on your own ;)

Through Time Travel Shenanigans, Hollyleaf's name evolves into the word "Scourge"

The Clanmew Play-by-Play of that

The word for Everything

How hard is it for speakers of the other in-universe languages to pick up Clanmew?

On nicknames!

Squirrelpaw and Crowfoot discover corn

The names of the three ideologies... also thistles.

The Invalid Five

Expansion Packs

Colors

Directions, way-finding

Spirituality terms

Rocks

Beetles

Follow up: some plant parts

Patch (pattern) vs Patch (plants)

Den, camp, territory, construction

The two violets

Shapes of flowers

Volume

Generic terms

Rollypollies and centipedes

Insults

Rain... because this is England

The Clan Clock; time terms

The four seasons

Clerics and Common Herbs

Roses

Water movement

BIRDS AND BATS

Finches

Texture

Dogs

Mint

Parts of fur

Forest terms

Foxes, parts of a forest

Cuckoo bird

DEER

Shade and understorey

Cedar

Waterside words

Pronunciation Stuff

Closest thing to an IPA chart I currently have

My process for coming up with words based on vibes

I was asked for more behind-the-scenes stuff so here you go?

How I hold my mouth when I speak

Trout Tips

How would Clan cats pronounce the Slavic TS, or the word pizza?

On the Double yy

Working translations

BB!Scourge's new warrior name, Iceheart, in Clanmew... and Nightheart!

Light, moon, wind, BB!Raggedstar's pre-honor title name

OC SUBMISSION: Flameshell, Fogwhisper, Willowsong

OC SUBMISSION: Lichennose, Mudthistle, Longpounce

OC SUBMISSION: Fallensky

PACK PACK KILL KILL

"I love you"

Baby talk

"What have I done?"

"Fool Tale"

How to Clanmew-ify a strange word

Dishonor Title for "Mudpuddle"

OC SUBMISSION: Riverrunner, multiple-word names, walking words

OC SUBMISSION: Firefang, Rabbitdash, Peachfeather, plus a bunch of words for weasel-like animals

Ivypool

The use of tense in names

PROPHECY SUBMISSION: "Dust and flame will combine to destroy home"

Skywatcher

OC SUBMISSION: The Caldwell Family

Foxheart

Runningnose

PROPHECY SUBMISSION: Six will come of every rank

OC SUBMISSION: Witherstrike

"I like this" and also parasitic worms

Prism, rainbow-color

OC SUBMISSION: Piebald Creature

Gayheart

Sneeze and Knockout

OC SUBMISSION: Penny-fitzgerald

OC SUBMISSION: Voidwhisper, Chalkwhistle

OC SUBMISSION: Poppyflare, Spikemane, Blizzardfang

OC SUBMISSION: Burning Hawk-fur

Mistyfoot

BRAMBLESTAR BUTCHERS THE BLOSSOMKIT NAMES

Dialect Submissions

Pfurr Clanmew (@troutfur)

[silveredfeathers]

Lugia

Cross posted from my site with some small edits.

Disclaimer: This is going to focus on the Lugias within my universe. There is a good chance some of the information here will not apply to you if you don't live in the Taskforce universe.

Also throwing this under a cut since this is long.

Starting with the basics

Type: Psychic/Flying

Average Standing Height: 11' 3"

Average Wingspan: 16' 7"

Above is a sketch I drew of a Lugia to show the wings.

Lugia are bipedal bird like dragons who typically live in or close to the sea. They have powerful wings that let them fly through the worst of hurricanes without issues, making travel in the sky very easy for them. The back of their heads stick out as a way to make space for their brains, which gives them access to the psychic powers that help them control the storms they make. A highly flexible tail helps propel them through water and lets them make sharper turns in flight. Their sharp beaks makes it easy for them to catch prey or rip into difficult to eat berries.

There's quite a bit of variation when it comes to how a Lugia can look. Stripes and spots are pretty common to see if a Lugia has patterns, some can have points like one may see on a cat, or in rare cases they'll have a piebald down. There's more patterns than just these, but I don't want to go into every single one here. A majority of the time, Lugia keeps a cooler coloration, typically keeping to a range of blues. The common shiny coloration has more pink instead.

Above is a photo of the Lugia who chose me. She has a blue coloration that's seen in most Lugia.

A Lugia's beak can look pretty different from another's beak, with things like small spikes or changes in their "teeth" being some of the more obvious things. The eye horns have some slight shape variation too, though they always point to the area behind them.

The fins or spikes on their backs can be either… Well fins or spikes. They're always in pairs and are pretty much never connected to the other fins/spikes, though there are quite a few shapes they can be.

Sometimes wings can be webbed, have rounded fingers, or have a wing spur instead of the usual thumb. Rarely you can find a Lugia with claws on their feet. The tail spikes also always come in pairs, though sometimes there's two or three sets of them.

Lugia hatchlings start off as a solid grey color to help them blend in with the darker colors of the rocks they're usually near. Trying to touch a baby Lugia's grey feathers will lead to them splintering into sharp little bits.

A sketch of a baby Lugia cropped from a diagram discussing Lugia. [OOC - It's cropped from my own sketch page]

Unlike what what many people think, Lugia are actually wanderers! They use the clouds to hide when flying and stay rather high up, so most Lugia sightings tend to be in or near the ocean. They also have great control over the storms they make. Old legends talking about Lugia storms are often referring to Lugia that have been angered to the point of losing control.

Wings

Both Lugia and Ho-oh have legends surrounding them involving feathers with interesting properties. These feathers are often referred to as the Silver and Rainbow Wings by most. However, it seems that over time many Wings have been combined into the Silver and Rainbow wings when telling these stories, likely due to the information slowly being lost to time. Here I am going to document each of Lugia's Wings and the various things each one can do. SILVER WING This feather will be the same color any spot of the Lugia, though it tends to be more silvery shades when possible. It looks like it splits at the end of the rachis (the thing in the middle of a feather) and is very shimmery to the point that it could possibly be mistaken for a feather from a shiny pokemon. This is how a Lugia will keep track of their chosen (and potential chosens). It's often also sign of trust from the Lugia if you are given one. Holding the Silver Wing under moon light will cause it to glow and sparkle quite a bit. I'm not sure why it has to be moonlight specifically. There are myths that say that people who have one of these have a silver soul. Apparently that means they're someone who stays true to themselves even with their imperfections, though this may be incorrect since I can't find a concrete explanation for it. GUIDING WING This is a smaller feather that starts as a color from the body of the Lugia and fades into the color of the eye horns. They also only come from areas near the eyes. It's got a soft glow to it at all times, though it's only really noticeable when it's dark. If you hold it for a few minutes it sorta feels like it's trying to gently pull you somewhere. Having followed this tug with several Guiding Wings it is safe to say that it will lead you to a sea shore, no matter where you start. Holding the feather up in the air at night will let me see stars through the clouds, though having other people try to do the same doesn't seem to work. This may be just a chosen thing. OCEAN WING This feather looks like it's grown into two feathers. The rachis is even split in two. It shares the same color as the back spikes/fins of the Lugia it comes off of. Holding this Wing for about a minute starts to make you feel warm, which I think is to help counter how cold the ocean can be. There's a myth that says splitting a Wing in halve let a "hero of storms" breath under water for a while. I think it's referring to this Wing, though I can't exactly test it myself due to my hybrid status. STORM WING This is a large rectangular shaped feather that comes from the wings of a Lugia, and it matches the wing color too. I haven't had an opportunity to really see what this one does, though I have found old journal scans that describes a feather pretty much exactly like this one. Apparently they're supposed to help guide ship captains out of storms and hurricanes. Here's a link to the scans I found [OOC - This is my initial HCs post for the Wings]. It's also got information about Ho-oh Wings and seems to line up with what I've figured out.

[gingermintpepper]

U mention in 1 of ur tags that Poseidon has vitiligo? Could u tell us more about that pls?

Okay so, I saw this ask and went "oh man this is a wonderful opportunity to ramble about some of my design decisions for the Olympians" then I also, simultaneously went "This is also a perfect opportunity to doodle Poseidon" so I spent like, way too much time doing a dinky little doodle to show both what Poseidon's vitiligo looks like + what I generally envision his design to be like when he's on Olympus!

Of course, in true Ginger fashion, it's very messy but I think it gets the point across well enough! The big reason Poseidon has vitiligo (or why I've interpreted his skin as being speckled) is because well, as a horse/hippocampus (which is his actual preferred form) he has a piebald/pinto coat and the only way really to translate that onto a human-presenting form is some form of pigmentation disorder like vitiligo or leukoderma.

Poseidon, like almost every other Olympian (save for Apollo who has the most human-like appearance of them all) has multiple animal/mythical creature elements incorporated into his design/interpretation, many of these I've chosen to allude to what their 'truest' forms are like, for example Zeus' big bull horns because he was born a horned god or Aphrodite's feathered hair and talons because she is directly descended from Ouranos. Because gods are always changing and evolving as the world changes and evolves, these features of theirs can change to better match their current 'truest' self, but most deities, especially the older ones, tend to settle after a period of time and don't experience much drastic change. For my purposes, Poseidon was born with horse like features which he inherited from his mother including his striking piebald coat and his horse's ears, but he later acquired sea serpent traits such as his tail, sharp teeth and water-like hair after acquiring the domain of the Ocean and being forced to adapt very rapidly to his new environment.

Due to geneology and generational inheritance being such a major theme in my work, I chose to let that stand for the descendents of the gods as well! Humans naturally aren't born with coats and such, but many of Poseidon's children do end up having some form of leucism from minor things like Ancaeus' double coloured hair or Bellerophon's 'peeled' hands and feet (they were a lighter colour than the rest of his body) to much more intense expressions of the trait like Theseus' albinism or Triton's very unique speckling. It's rare for his human children to get an extreme expression of this trait due to humans just kind of having less melanin to work with compared to nymphs, spirits or animals, but it does happen from time to time.

[thewebcomicsreview]

Disregard this message if you don’t do this sort of thing, but i was wondering if there would be any feedback i could get in regards to my comic? I am almost finished drawing the entire backlogue, so if feedback is received it will probably be applied towards the sequel. Feedback or not, I love your page very much, it’s introduced me to saffron and sage(of which i am very fond of the character designs and humour) and out of placers(weird creatures my beloved!)

Thank you for your work!

https://m.webtoons.com/en/canvas/piebald-dove-plea/list?title_no=621921

Hey, thanks!

So, lessee. Your comic is called "Piebald Dove Plea". Bit of a weird name, for a bit of a weird comic. It's dreamlike, and to be honest I'm having a lot of trouble following it.

Some of that is that it's literally difficult to read. None of the dialogue is appropriately sized for the word balloon it's in here, and panel three has some (black) text escape the balloon into the (dark) background, so I literally can not tell what this dude is saying.

And I can see that this is something you're working on, there's a notable improvement between pages ten and page fifty-one (I like the "feathery" word balloon in the fourth panel here!), but even on the later pages there's a lot of issues and even some words escaping the balloons again. And it's pretty clear why this is happening: These word balloons don't fit the shape of the dialogue well at all. I spent some time trying to fix them, and while I'm not a letterer and I'm sure someone else could've done better, it was rough trying to get that text to fit nicely.

I think this does look a bit better, but that's mostly just because I'm using a better comics font (Anime Ace 2.0 BB from Blambot. It's free!), and maybe that I split "to sink them into cockerels" a bit from the rest of the monologue to make it hit a bit different, but I'm fighting to squeeze the square text into the round balloon. I cropped out Panel 4 because I was too scared to even try.

My own lettering is actually pretty trash, to be honest, and I'm sure all the real artists in the audience are tittering to themselves at those fucked balloons, but I think this is still enough to illustrate my point. I typed the words, then I drew the bubbles, then I drew the little rabbit doodle, and everything fits so much nicer and I can properly draw the rabbit there because I know where it fits. It's way easier because you'll see balloon/dialogue issues when it's easy to fix and not when the whole goddamn page is done being drawn and you can't change it. For the first panel in the example, simply moving Dorcas a bit to the left would've made it way easier for you to fit the dialogue in, but it's a huge pain to do that now.

For newer artists, it's usually best to focus on fixing on thing at a time, and fixing up that lettering is the think you should focus your energy into before moving on to other things. It's a small thing that's relatively easy to learn and makes such a difference.

[goodlucktai]

So lil request if ya feel up for it :-}

★ A story about Mikey's brothers finding out about his and Woody's secret relationship(?). Like, maybe it can be that one of them are going through Mikey's phone and they see his camera roll full of photos of him and Woody !! Or like they walk in on the two cuddling asleep or something idk :-0

Do whatever U want 💖

i went with rise on this one. i missed those guys :')

read on ao3

x

Don slams into the infirmary with a shout of, “LEO! Leoleoleoleoleoleo!”

“Congratulations, my name just sounds like noise to me now,” Leo replies drolly, as if he’s not ecstatic to have company. Sure, Raph had been camped beside his bed up until like ten minutes ago, but a lot can happen in ten minutes. 

As if to prove it, Don shoves a phone into Leo’s face. “Michael—our Michael—has a boyfriend.”

Leo sits up so fast he feels it in his entire body, an ache radiating down his spine like it’s a gong that just got rung.

“You’re lying!” 

“I would never lie to you,” Donnie says, his tone a weird mix of agitated and absolutely giddy.  

Such a gossip, Leo thinks fondly. 

Don piles onto the bed, still careful of Leo’s broken bones but a far cry from the cautious, mincing way he climbs in lately for their Youtube video essay marathons or vent sessions. Leo might have to orchestrate more tantalizing secrets for his nosy twin to uncover if it stops him treating Leo like something glass that’s about to break. 

Shoulder to shoulder, Donnie holds the phone where they both can see it. Now that Leo’s looking at it properly, he clocks the glittery sticker-covered military-grade phone case and says, “Oh, no. Tello, you didn’t. Look me in the eyes and tell me you didn’t steal his phone.”

“It’s called the Freedom of Information Act.”

“That does not apply here!” Leo is torn between horror—because Mikey is objectively terrifying—and glee—because Donnie is an absolute menace and he loves to see it. 

“Agree to disagree. I could have just cloned his phone onto a new device but where’s the pizzazz? Anyway—”

He brings up Mikey’s camera roll, scrolling through dozens of post-invasion celebratory selfies and candids, past a few scattered pics of Mikey’s own cooking and digital art (and Leo makes a mental note to revisit that, because there aren’t as many of those as there ought to be) and finally making an “ah-HAH” sound under his breath, tapping on a particular picture to blow it up. 

It’s a selfie taken at arm’s length of two faces squished together to fit the frame. One face belongs to Leo’s little brother, caught mid-laugh. The other one is distinctly human, almost lost in a haphazard cloud of yellow curls and turned sideways to plant a kiss on Mikey’s spotted cheek. 

Leo finds himself smiling involuntarily. Mikey looks happy. It’s cute. 

Of course, if Mikey thinks he can have a whole-ass secret boyfriend and get away with it, he’s got another thing coming. Not when he has three older brothers and an older sister who have been waiting their entire lives for this moment. 

“This doesn’t prove they’re dating,” he points out, mostly just to play devil's advocate. “Maybe they’re super affectionate friends. The five of us do cheek- and forehead-kisses on occasion, too.”

“Mm-hmm, yes, I thought you might say that, and I am, of course, prepared to offer more evidence.” 

Donnie taps out of the photo gallery and brings up Mikey’s messaging app. He scrolls for a bit, past the sibling group chat, April, their own names, Raph, their dads—even Rupert, what the hell?—and then, right beneath Piebald and before Casey Sr., is a text thread with a contact simply, and tellingly, labeled babe💛.

On pure reflex, Leo smacks the phone out of Don’s hand before he can open the thread. 

“So what we’re not about to do is read his texts to and from his boyfriend,” he says, very deliberately, so a single world won’t be misconstrued.

“I wasn’t gonna,” Donnie mumbles, in a tone that suggests that he was, in fact, gonna. 

Leo picks up the phone and goes back to the picture. He checks the timestamp, humming thoughtfully to see that it was from a little over two months ago. They've certainly been busy since the whole Krang situation, but Mikey has always had time for the things he loves. He makes time. He’s just a kid, albeit one who had to grow up too fast, but he was born with a good sense of what’s really important.

And this guy, Leo thinks, seems like he could be important. So why is this the first they’re hearing about him?

“How exactly did you make this discovery?” Leo asks, handing the stolen phone back. 

“S.H.E.L.L.D.O.N. regularly scans all of our devices for anything icky—you’re welcome—and he asked me who the blond guy was,” Donnie explains offhandedly. “He thought we had a new friend he hadn’t met. You know how he gets when he thinks we’re leaving him out of literally anything.”

“Like father, like son,” Leo says sagely.

Donnie lowers the phone and makes direct eye contact. “No.”

Leo laughs so hard he thinks he might actually be in danger of puncturing a lung with one of his broken ribs. Donnie goes back to snooping, but there’s a pleased quirk at the corner of his mouth. 

“DONALD!” a voice thunders suddenly from down the hall. “IF WHAT I THINK IS HAPPENING IS HAPPENING, IT BETTER NOT BE!”

“Eughh boy,” Leo says. 

Looking as though he just saw his life flash before his eyes, Donnie shoves the phone at him and blurts, “You take it! You’re a convalescent, he can’t kill you! It would be against the Geneva Conventions!”

“Oh, I see, you want me to use my horribly mangled body as a meat shield between you and the consequences of your own actions.” Leo holds his hands up and open to avoid having any incriminating evidence forced into them. “Also, I think you skipped like six years of Social Studies.”

The infirmary doors slam open hard enough that one of Leo’s shelves of meticulously organized medical supplies rattles ominously. Mikey looms in the threshold, silhouetted against the light from the den. It’s appropriately intimidating.

There’s a beat of silence. Then Mikey’s eyes lower to the bright yellow phone in Donnie’s hands. It’s indie-film levels of drama. Leo is eating this up. 

Donnie whispers, “Oh, Hawking, I did not think this through.”

“When you die, who gets your laptop?” Leo whispers back. 

“I knew it!” Mikey shrieks. “You think S.H.E.L.L.D.O.N. can keep a secret?? S.H.E.L.L.D.O.N.?? You programmed him with all your own tells! I’m going to destroy everything you love!” 

The resulting cat-and-mouse chase around the infirmary is rowdy enough that it summons Raph, warm and fresh from the shower, dressed in his favorite huge pink hoodie. He catches Donnie on his way by and lifts him bodily out of the melee. Mikey is bloodthirsty enough that he scales Raph like a tree and their biggest brother is forced to hold Donnie out at arm’s length to keep the two of them apart.

“Woah, woah, hey—Jesus, what is happening?” Raphie says. His eyes dart to Leo, one dark and the other a pale milky pink, but it’s still the same look he’s given Leo a billion times before. The one that says loop me in. 

Leo searches under his pillow for the palm-sized knife he keeps there and focuses hard. Two little cyan portals open, maybe the size of dessert plates, one next to him and the other by Donnie, a neat little wrinkle in the dimension. He reaches through it and retrieves the phone. 

Pretending he doesn’t feel woozy after the brief use of ninpo well before he was technically allowed to use it again—because then he would have to admit that Draxum was right about something, and frankly he’d rather die—Leo waves the recovered goods at his brothers.

Mikey stops trying to kill Donnie and stares across the room with a very vulnerable, unhappy expression. Leo hates that, so he takes charge. 

“Just the Cain Instinct at work, Raphala,” Leo says, smiling. “How about you deliver Donnie to April for a lecture on respecting other people’s privacy, and I’ll talk to Mikey about the pros and cons of fratricide.”

“Pros and cons? What pros? You know what, nevermind,” Raph adds before Leo can answer, holding Donnie more comfortably in the crook of his arm as Mikey hops down from his shell. 

Donnie is dead-weight at this point, gone totally limp and accepting his fate. Since a lecture from April has a fifty-fifty chance of turning into a gossip session, Leo doesn’t feel bad for his twin at all. 

“And don’t think you're not in deep shit for that portal just now,” Raph says severely, pointing at him. “Yeah, Raph clocked that. No ninpo while you’re healing, Leon, or I’m telling pops.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Leo says dismissively.

But Raph still comes over to rub his head, and Leo still leans into him when he does, because a little part of Leo is always going to be six years old with stars in his eyes, gazing up at his biggest brother like Raph could hold the whole sun in his hands if he wanted to.

When Raph has carted Donnie away, the infirmary is much quieter. Mikey slinks over to the bed ungraciously and invites himself right up, pressing into Leo’s side and hiding his face in a yellow-striped shoulder.

Leo passes him back his phone. Mikey tucks it against his plastron and doesn’t say anything.

“So the pros of fratricide would be that your stuff would get stolen way less,” Leo begins airily. 

With a huff, Mikey nudges him. 

“He showed me a picture, but we didn’t read any texts,” Leo adds, less playful. “As far as we know, you have a really good friend we just haven’t met yet.”

“Yeah,” his little brother says quietly. He presses his face harder into Leo’s shoulder. Leo works his arm out from in between them and wraps it around Mikey’s carapace instead. 

Tracing a familiar pattern between the scutes, he says, “You know you can tell me anything, right?”

When Leo came out, a few years ago now, he was terrified. 

It was just another thing that made him difficult, that made him harder to love, that might cost him what little of his father’s good opinion he thought he had. He kept it a secret, tucked behind the armor of his plastron where no one but himself would ever see it.

But then one day, when he was fourteen, Leo found Raph in the living room, watching Youtube videos of the NYC Pride Parade with something young and hopeful on his face, only to slam the laptop shut when Splinter came in. Raph’s expression had twisted into something ashamed. Afraid. 

And Leo thought, Absolutely not.

So he came out to his family over dinner that same night. He said it like his hands weren’t sweaty and shaking beneath the table, like he hadn’t practiced the words and tone in the mirror for an hour beforehand. 

He couldn’t force himself to look at Splinter, twisting some spaghetti onto his fork and following his big announcement with something stupid, like, So I guess you could say the only straight I am’s a straight-up bitch. That way everyone would know it wasn’t serious, wasn’t a big deal, they could stop looking at him now please. 

Raph didn’t even get after Leo for saying the bitch word. He flew to his feet and rounded the table and scooped Leo up into a big bear hug. Well, Leo and Mikey, because Mikey was already attached to him at that point. Donnie said, “Gasp! This is my surprised face. Whoever could have anticipated this astonishing turn of events?” because he was an asshole. But he also reached over the table to put his garlic bread on Leo’s plate, because he was the absolute best. 

Leo’s heart didn’t stop racing for what felt like hours, even after his brothers squeezed him to death and made a bunch of noises about loving him no matter what, even after Splinter informed the table at large that his Baby Blue could start thinking about dating boys in another thirty years and not a minute sooner! 

But he did that for a reason. So his brothers had a lead to follow if they ever needed one. So they wouldn’t be scared like Leo constantly was.

And now the tension slowly leaks out of Mikey’s frame. 

“I know. I know,” he says, stronger the second time. “I guess I got all in my head about it. At first I wanted it to just be my thing, for me. I liked him but I wasn’t sure if he—you know. And then when he did, everything was perfect, and I didn’t want to mess it up.” He sits up enough that he can look at Leo, red-brown eyes earnest and wide. “Then the longer I didn’t say anything, the more impossible it felt to ever say anything. It’s not ‘cause I didn’t—”

“You don’t owe me or anybody else an explanation, Angie,” Leo says, tugging on the tails of his mask. “If you want to talk about him, I’m all-ears. If you want me to blackmail Donnie into forgetting he exists, I can do that, too. I’ve got the goods.”

Mikey smiles. It’s a relief to see. “I have no idea how you did it,” he says. “How you just told us like it was nothing. Told dad. I guess being his favorite probably helped.”

His WHAT?

Leo chokes on an incredulous laugh. He thumps his own chest, wheezing. Mikey rolls his eyes and slumps down again, gets comfy, a familiar weight under Leo’s arm. 

“Puh-lease, Lee. You two are like the same person, all the way down to the inherent self-worth issues and validation-seeking. Of course he’s going to feel complicated about loving a carbon-copy of himself when he hates himself so much.” After a moment, Mikey adds, “I think you help him feel better about who he is.”

Huh. Welp. Time to pack all of that up to think about later because otherwise Leo’s brain is going to explode.

“Nice attempt at distracting me, but I’m the master of misdirection.” Leo jostles Mikey, enough to make him whine stoooop. “If you think for one second you’re not everyone in the entire family’s favorite person, then there’s something deeply wrong with you,” he adds severely. “Junior has only been here for like five minutes and even he likes you best.”

Mikey’s grinning by the time he’s done. Leo can feel the shape of it against his arm. 

“It’s a gift,” the youngest Hamato says humbly. 

Identical chimes from the phone in Mikey’s hand and the one on the bedside table alert them to a new text in the Mad Dogz group chat. 

Bootyyyshaker9000 After an illuminating conversation, during which absolutely no robot sons were taken hostage to force my compliance, I have seen the error of my ways and will endeavor to change my behavior. I wanted to offer my sincerest apologies to Angelo for my invasion of his privacy. I am not making this statement under duress. YellowSubmarine Good enough for you, baby?

Mikey’s grin graduates with honors into a laugh, that charming, full-bodied thing that fills whatever room he happens to be in. He types a quick reply and the group chat goes crazy. Leo sort of just lays there and takes the moment in. 

In about an hour, it’ll be time for another round of medication, but Leo thinks—even though it’s sappy and saccharine and he would never, ever say it out loud—that this is medicine enough. 

“Sooo,” Leo says, “you gonna tell me about him?”

“Leo,” Mikey groans, but he’s still smiling. 

“Oh, come on, you have to give me something.”

“How ‘bout a trade?”

Aww, his baby brother knows how to barter. Leo is so proud.

“I’m listening,” he says.

“I’ll tell you about Woody,” Mikey offers, waving his phone around, “if you tell me about that bunny waiter from Run of the Mill who asked for your number.”

Leo would shoot upright if he had, like, a completely unbroken back. As it is he has to move a little slower. 

“What?? Why—how did you—I mean, who?” Nailed it.

“Raph overheard the entire thing,” Mikey says sweetly. “He thought it was cute so he told me since I was right there. You know he can’t handle cute without gushing about it to somebody.”

It’s Raph’s knee-jerk reaction, like cute-aggression; only instead of squeezing or biting, he has to overshare to the nearest available party, usually while choking back tears. 

Kneading his temples, Leo forces out, “Mm-hmm.” 

He can’t even be mad, though. It’s Raph. If Donnie had been the one to overhear, it’d be plastered on a billboard above Times Square by now. 

“Lemme have this one on Donnie,” Mikey says, and brings out the big guns, brown eyes all wide and liquid. “He always gets your secrets first.”

“Disaster twins privilege,” Leo replies, so he doesn’t have to think about the novel concept that his family could believe his secrets are worth anything. “Alright, Miguel. Since it’s to spite Dontron specifically, you have yourself a deal.”

Mikey whoop-whoops, with the arm and everything. It’s so stupid. And it makes Leo think, This Woody guy doesn’t know how lucky he is. 

[adobe-outdesign]

can you review tandemaus (the pokémon that canonically fucks) if you haven’t yet?

I will give the Tandemaus line points right off the bat for being one of the most unique lines of Gen 9. "Two mice that evolve into four mice" is just such a weird concept that I can't help but admire it for sheer audacity.

Visually, Tandemaus looks a lot like little dolls, which is cute and lends itself to the sort of "dollhouse" concept of a doll family with kids. They also get points for being absolute gremlins:

However, something about this design just feels... kind of plain? Like yep, those sure are the exact same mouse copy and pasted twice. I kind of wish they looked at least a little more different; maybe one is just a different brown/gray color (and the babies could be piebald!) or the ears were different shapes or something.

They did try to differentiate the two a bit with one having a "shirt" marking and the other "pants", but the color is so light as to be barely noticeable, and it leaves little visual impact. Also, it feels like the notches could've line up puzzle-piece style to imply to the two go together or something. They're not bad as-is or anything, but they feel a little underbaked.

Obviously I don't have a ton to say about Maushold because it's just double Tandemaus, but those are some pretty adorable babies.

I know some have complained about this evo "not making sense", but Kangaskhan has been carrying its baby around since Gen 1 and people seem fine with that. I just kind of assumed that, much like with Kangaskhan, the babies are too little to be on their own yet and separating them would be bad for the Pokemon, so they're counted as one for battling purposes.

Though with that said, I also prefer to interpret them as "babies", emphasis on quotation marks:

There's also a "family of three" form. No idea what the point of it is and it's not really necessary, but it's a harmless addition for those that like collection can hunt after.

So as a whole, these guys are super unique, and they have a charm similar to that of sylvanian families figures. However, I find the designs themselves a bit underwhelming, and it feels like the designs could've been pushed a bit further beyond the basic "dollhouse" look. Still, they're pretty fun.

Side note: There should be an evo that adds a "pet" to the family that's called "dollmaus". Would that be the dumbest thing ever? Yes. Do I want it anyway? Yes.

[berrypass-de-murdler]

2 - 12 The Murder of the Butler

When google docs decides to count softgico as a word but not deductive

Anyway thought Marble was the 70th designed character, but actually she's the 71st and Bronze got that honor

But still 70 CHARACTERS WITH OFFICIAL CARTOONVERSE ARTWORKS!!

Maid Marble is a piebald (or marbled!) badger. She's not AS resentful as her canon counterpart and generally acts like a sweet old lady. Her dark secret is that she has an unfathomable taste for humans! Wanna guess what's in that pie?

DON'T READ THE EPISODES WITHOUT READING THE BOOKS!!

A great song came on, and everyone is dancing their asses off at Bronze’s hero party. Except Logico, of course, he doesn’t dance. He picks up Lord Violet’s biography, still covered in a bit of blood - the murder weapon from his dramatic rescue. If he wants lore, this is where to get it. As he reads the first paragraph, he tries to envision deep within his mind every detail, attempting to use Irratino’s ‘past-vision’ technique to uncover the mystery more… 

A blazing fire erupts in a forest. Giant deer-like creatures run for their lives, faces out of view. Logico can feel their tension, leaping over debris, barely avoiding flames, hooves slamming against the ground. One of the creatures is just a child, and can barely keep up…

The baby one falls, injured. Despite the encroaching blaze, an adult stops and turns back for it, trying to lift it up to its feet. Another tree falls, and it has no choice but to sling it over its back and run. 

As the fire settles, only the baby emerges from the forest, very weak. It collapses outside a settlement. But a shadow stands over it, and reaches out a hand…

The book takes a sudden shift to many years later. Logico wonders why so much was cut out? But he learns some key information. Lord Violet once supported the Reds - an alliance in the Drakonian Civil War. 

The animal, now with the iconic mask, stands stock still in a barren room that is so tightly cramped it couldn’t even be a bathroom. There is a lot of blood on the ground, and a slumped body on the pathetic excuse for a bed. Lady Violet, who hasn’t even grown wings yet, is crouched in a corner, and by the entrance, a twisting, dripping humanoid lurches.  Who could the killer have been? 

After all, as Irratino always says, assassins tend to carry swords, rather than heavy purses or leather gloves.

Lord Violet leaps and pins down the attacker, thrusting the sword out of their hands with his horns. With the thing in his nonexistent mouth, he slashes at them, but the figure ducks, and the sword breaks in half. The assassin creeps out on all fours and runs, perhaps never to be seen again.

Violet rests his head on the body. There’s no hope left, Beryl is long gone. The littlest Lady Violet clutches onto her father’s leg and cries. They bury their friend on a nearby island, and mourn, knowing nothing could ever replace him.

The book ends rather abruptly, explaining Lord Violet’s turn to violence and longing for revenge against the killer. Logico shuts the book and rubs his eye. This has caught him very off guard, and now that he’s done, all the other guests have left. Heavy-hearted and deeply uncomfortable, he heads back to his room, and prays it won’t take too long to fall asleep.

The end!

First episode with 0 dialogue I think?? Hope it's not too boring

I am excited to write Minimurdle regardless of how obviously not canon it is. I mean

We already got baby Eminence and Red confirmed!!! (hhhh forgot I can't show baby red yet)

The power of Goat Lord compels you!

See you next time murdlers!

[eukaryotesrool]

Leucism and Kimba

So this is gonna be real life facts (ones I'd say are interesting) mixed with some fan stuff, you don't need to know about the franchise to understand this, but it will be long and only slightly hinged.

Grab a snack, a drink annnnnnd...

What is a Kimba?

(Kimba (1965) running)

This guy, the titular hero of Osamu Tezuka's Kimba the White Lion franchise (AKA Jungle Emperor Leo(direct translation), Janguru Taitei(untranslated title))

For now, all you folks need to know about him is that he comes from a long lineage of lions with uniquely white fur.

Gee, you know what else relates to lions, white fur, and genetics, oh boy, a segway into the next thi-

What is a leucism?

(Pronounced 'luke-ism')

(Animals with a leucistic disorder, leucistic peacocks look neat, though, they all do)

leucism is a variety of conditions causing a lack of pigmentation in animals.

"Isn't that albinism?"

They're comparable, but seperate, their causes are different, also no leucistic condition removes eye pigmentation, so, Kimba's blue eyes aren't a problem.

(Kimba (1965) running, he does that a lot)

Now I'd like to go over every major leucistic condition and compare/contrast them to what we can note about Kimba.

No, I am not joking.

(OH MY GOD ITS SO CUTE I- er, this is a real life white lion cub, owing its white fur to a leucistic disorder)

Something to remember, most of these conditions don't (or don't to our knowledge) affect lions and could be easily swatted aside as such, but KTWL (Kimba the White Lion) is a work of fiction which consistently does absurd things, for example, Great Mother, a surviving mammoth who lives on a magic mountain and has magic powers or a blue lion (no I won't tell you what makes him blue), so I'm willing to brush aside SOME realism... also I researched them so I want to talk about them.

Yes, there is a condition that causes real life white lions, buuuuut I'm saving that can of worms for later.

Easily disproven

These ones don't work for several reasons, I'll be using only the most glaring issues for the sake of brevity.

Vitiligo & flavism: These two conditions happen over the course of one's life, but we see Kimba near birth, and he possessed his white fur.

Chédiak–Higashi syndrome: Causes symptoms (including but not limited to: peripheral neuropathy) which Kimba almost certainly does not have.

Isabellinism: affects only birds and leads to a golden white, not a snowy one.

(An isabellinistic bird, majestic fellow, eh?)

Xanthochromism: Makes things fucking yellow.

(A xanthochromistic (pictured right) and normal (pictured left) Argentine horned frog, so cool.)

Axanthism: only affects things with light reflecting pigments, and can only make things with normally yellow color have white color.

Amelanism: Meaning lacking melanin, so those black tipped ears and tail would be a no-no, yet we observe numerous pelts of his ancestors all with the exact same ears, and, we have reason to believe, the exact same tail (his father also possessed the same tail)

Okay, that was the bulk of the list, we're making good progress.

Maybe

These ones are harder to disprove, but I'd still say they're obviously not what we're looking for.

Piebaldism: Now, this one seems convincing as it can generate black AND white fur, it is genetically dominant, therefore, could lead to the continous lineage (where at least one of few children seems to always inherit it) but it lacks the uniformity, as I said, every white lion posses the same pattern, with few inconsistently appearing exceptions within the franchise, we'll get to that later on, the point is, consistency is the rule, chaos is the exception, and piebaldism is too chaotic.

(Piebaldistic animals. That squirrel looks so neat! Like his back is covered in snow!)

Waardenburg syndrome: Specifically type two is a strong contender, most notably because it causes bright blue eyes (or a blue and brown eye, sometimes) along with its other effects, HOWEVER, it also causes congenital hearing loss, and in cats (Felis Catus or house cats, technically, but they're the closest comparison I have to lions) said hearing loss is more common and more extreme, I doubt Kimba has that. Type 1 and type 3 cause other malformities that Kimba visibly doesn't posses.

Not sure

I tried, but my research was not conclusive, if you have answers, I'd be glad to hear them.

melanophilin: it is listed, but isn't a disorder, it is a carrier protein, I did some research and disorders with this protein don't seem like they'd make the snow white color we're looking for.

Undisputable

Oh, uh, there's nothing here, we've gone over every major leucistic disorder, there ARE more, but we'd be here all day, and so little is known about them it'd be arbitary.

Well, we're not through with every leucistic condition on the agenda, there's still...

THE CAUSE OF REAL WHITE LIONS

That's right, we've made it.

There's obviously a myriad of similarities, Tezuka was probably inspired by the real life white lions.

For example

(Pictured left, Kimba (1989 anime series) and his love inyerest, Raiya, a fellow lion, but not a white lion. Pictured right, two lionesses, one being a white lion)

The jarringly (among other lions) snow white fur.

(Sorry the images of Kimba's paw sucks, you won't believe it, but it was SO difficult to find a pic online with his paw pads in it, real life white lions? Pfft plenty of pictures in an instant.)

(Yes, pink is the unpigmented color for paw pads)

The pink paw pads

(Pictured left, Kimba's father (2009 movie) pictured right OH MY GOD SO CUTE)

The genetic basis allowing for lineages that share the trait

So then, this is it?... no, no, no, no, sadly, no, not so simple, there is one glaring inconsistency.

Firstly, an aside: I tried researching the specific cause of white lion leucism (it comes from a mutation for tyrosinase) but very little is known about it exactly, though, I gleaned something just by using the oldest tool in the zoology briefcase, me own eyes.

Notice a difference between Kimba and EVERY image of a white lion I've provided? Here, have some more white lion.

(Look at 'em all!)

From male to female, newborn, to cub, to adult, one consistency that Kimba does not share, maybe you already noticed and want me to get to the fucking point, maybe I will, maybe I won't, okay, I will.

(Circles denoting where Kimba posseses the trait, 'x's denoting where the real lion cub does not)

Black fur, Kimba has black fur on the tips of his ears and tail, no image of a real life white lion that I've seen has that pattern, or ANY black fur (wait, did I just retread my point about amelanism? Damn), and I'm lead to believe that does not occur amongst real life white lions, so then...

Kimba is a an anomaly

(From top left to bottom right Kimba's aunt (1989) Kimba's father (2009) and Kimba's father (1989)

In the 2009 version the only white lions we see are Kimba and his dad, and his dad lacks the black fur, in the 1989 series the only white lions we see are Kimba, his dad and aunt, both of the latter lack the black fur, but Kimba retains it in all versions.

Perhaps the cause of white lions is the same as real life white lions, and Kimba is a very rare anomaly within an anomaly, I don't know a whole lot about genetics, but that sounds reasonable enough for KTWL standards.

Buuuuuut, every other version, including the manga that started it all has other white lions retain the same color palette, and even show dozens of white lion ancestors, and a DISTANT white lion ancestor who all have the same palette, so, this anomaly theory is ironically only relevent to anomalies, the 1989 series and 2009 movie, what about for the whole franchise, well...

I don't know

Here's where I'd like to pull something out my hat and save the day with the obvious and true answer... but, there isn't one, at least, not one I found, sooooo, yeah, everyone must come to their own conclusion, maybe you even disagree with some of my reasoning and come to a conclusuon I've disregarded!

I'd love to hear your take away, and what comes next is merely my own personal take.

I don't know (good ending)

i don't know, and that's the point, I like that conclusion, the Kimba franchise contains mystisms, but never delves into them, leaving them as strange mysteries, it is a story about the exotic, it is ever out of reach.

I choose to believe white lions are semi-magical, thus why Kimba's lineage is the ONLY white lions we see in a franchise that stretches from 1950 to 2009, with over a hundred episodes, thus why white lions seem to always produce a white lion cub, but usually only ONE white lion cub, and the rest resemble the mother, because it works by magic rules.

In the 1989 version(and possibly others) Kimba is directly or indirectly likened to the supernatural, the Great Mother, a huge mammoth who can summon powerful snow storms in tropical Africa treats Kimba as such.

Simply, it can't be explained IRL, that's pretty cool, not everything needs to be explained, and MAGIC!

Thanks for sticking around through my insanity, hope you learned something and had fun, I did!

(Normally I'd put a pic riiight here to close things off but I hit the Tumblr image limit, didn't even know they had one)