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redpandaramblings · 2 years

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Conseggquences Part 2 (Kinktober Day 31)

Dragon Bakugou x Reader

CW: Smut, Not SFW, Egg Laying, Adult Situations, Mild Hypnosis/Mind Control, Dub Con due to altered mental state.

Greetings on this very, very, very late kinktober post. It was supposed to be done first in October, then for Easter, but well, now here it is. Some have asked for it, and I hope you enjoy!

It’s been a learning experience, you thought moodily as you rubbed your swollen belly. You’d been trapped in the dragon, Bakugou’s lair for a month now. It’s not like you could leave anyways. Even without how the amulet had altered your body, there was no way you could escape with the heavy clutch of eggs currently residing in your womb. You had wondered if removing the amulet would reverse its effects on you, but you didn’t dare find out until these eggs were out of you. You tried not to think about that too hard. Partly because you didn’t want to guess the number or size of the eggs that resided within you, and partly because you didn’t want the amulet to react.

It had taken a week after your capture for you to begin to figure out the pattern. Every time you felt extreme negative emotions, the amulet warmed, and your thoughts became calm and fuzzy. Unnerved about your new tail and wings? Warmth from the amulet that seemed to invade your brain. Your thoughts had gone from frustration to calm. Being a dragon was natural. It was easy to control your tail and wings. They were a part of you after all, and it felt so good.

Yeah, it had taken longer than you’d like to admit to figure out that the amulet could affect your mindset as well as your body, though unlike the physical changes, the fuzzy feeling of the forced mental calm didn’t last long, thankfully. So it was just a matter of staying relatively relaxed and trying to figure out what to do about your situation.

Honestly, things weren’t that bad. Yes, you had been changed into a dragon. Yes, you apparently were going to be mother to some hatchlings. And yes, for now you were still trapped in this cavern. But you were surrounded by more comforts and opulence than you had ever dreamed of before. Your nest was lined with finer fabrics than you’d find in palaces. You had been concerned that Bakugou would expect you to eat raw rabbits whole, but had been pleasantly surprised when he had served you delicate, deliciously cooked meals. You had asked him where he had gotten it, and he had beamed with pride before sweeping you into his arms and carrying you to the kitchen to show off one of his favorite parts of his hoard. He had put you down in a comfortable chair while he walked around the room, pulling out small containers of exotic spices and explaining which were his favorite. That was another thing you were coming to terms with. This dragon, this Bakugou was… not entirely what you expected. He could change his size at will, but often remained smaller and with more human features. You asked him why and he had answered “Because my mate prefers it.” He had a foul temper. When he was in a mood he would snarl and huff, smoke billowing from his nostrils. Yet, he never took his temper out on you. At most he would snap at you a little that he wasn’t in the mood for your questions. He would huff his way out of the cavern, navigating the maze of passages you hadn’t had the chance to explore yet. But when he would return hours later, he would come and curl himself around you, murmuring an apology. He was arrogant and boastful, but generous. Proud, but clingy. He seemed to always want to touch you. Not just for pleasure, but you would pull you into his lap and simply hold you, eyes closed and his nose in your hair. He seemed… Very lonely. You really didn’t know how to feel about him.

Well, you thought as you watched him approach you with a tray of food to nibble on, you supposed you had some time to figure that out. ~~~~~~~~~~~~

You woke from your slumber to discomfort. You couldn’t quite put your finger on it until a second contraction rippled through you. Oh.

“Oh fuck.”

You hadn’t thought you had spoken that last bit aloud until you felt stirring behind you. “Treasure?” Bakugou’s sleep rough voice asked, as he tried to wrap an arm around you. You hissed a breath, batting him away. He sat up more with a grumble, ready to scold you until he got a good look at you. His eyes darted from your pained face, to your awkward position, to your belly and back again. His eyes widened. “Oh.” He whispered, sitting up to rest on his heels. You whimpered at him. “I’m not ready for this.”

“I don’t think the eggs care, Precious.” He murmured as he brushed a stay hair from your face. “It will be alright. I’m right here. Let me and the amulet help.”

You hardly hesitated before nodding.

Bakugou helped you sit while he rearranged the cushions and blankets of the nest. “They’ll get ruined.” You protest weakly.

“They’re just things.” He replied curtly. “They can be replaced. My mate’s comfort is more important.” Your heart fluttered, but the next wave of pain didn’t give you time to dwell on it. Soon, Bakugou was easing you back onto the pillows. You only half paid attention to him gently encouraging to get in whatever position felt right. You started to disrobe and he quickly helped you until you were bare. The contractions were coming faster, but with them was also coming the warm fuzzy brained feeling of the amulet working to calm you. For once you welcomed the feeling. The pain became a background noise to the rest of the sensations you were experiencing. Yes, your thoughts whispered to you. This was good. You finally got to lay the clutch you and your mate had been waiting for. You made a noise that was more moan than groan as another contraction pulsed through you. Bakugou smirked, rubbing your leg in a soothing manner.

“There, Treasure. That’s my good girl. Don’t fight it.”

You nodded, slightly dazed. You absolutely weren’t going to fight this. You weren’t scared anymore. And the pain, while still there, was being overshadowed by how good and right this felt. You keened and held your arms out for your mate. He chuckled softly before leaning down to kiss you. The kiss started heated, a desperate meeting of tongues, teeth bumping until you found a rhythm. Slowly Bakugou gentled the kiss, moving slower, and more tenderly. He eased and nipped at your lip before pulling away. You tried to chase his lips, but he put a hand on your shoulder.

“Let me check how you’re doing, Precious. I need to take care of you.”

You whined, too gone for words, but nodded. He ran a hand down you, tweaking a nipple and causing your whole body to jerk. His hands continued down, down, until he reached your most sensitive area. He stroked the area around your clit and you gasped, hips shuddering. It had never felt so intense. So intense it burned. So good, but also much too much. You wanted to lean into it and hump his hand like a shameless whore, but you wanted to pull away for his touch that was too intense and too much. It was so hot and and tense and painful and so fucking amazing. His large, firm hand on your hip stilled your movements. You stared at him with wide eyes and begged.

“Please! Please, I need…” “Shhhh. It’s okay. I’ll take care of you.”

He looked at you as he carefully brushed his fingers over your sex.

“You’ll be ready soon, Treasure. And then our eggs will be here, isn’t that wonderful?”

You nodded, panting. It was wonderful. Your fuzzy mind couldn’t think of anything more wonderful at the moment. He smiled down at you and pressed a soft kiss to your forehead before turning back to the task at hand.

His fingers stroked your puffy lips, each touch almost burning with intensity. “Gonna make this good for you, Precious,” he murmured as he ran a single finger over your clit. You gasped, jolting. He stroked again with a smirk as you whimpered. “Have a few more minutes, so let’s get you nice and relaxed.” You moaned as he got to work, gently rubbing your opening while tweaking your nipples. It was too much and not enough. All you could do was moan and croon at your mate, such a good mate, taking such good care of you. Your mind felt warm and fuzzy and you were happy to give into the feelings and emotions. You raised your hips to rub more firmly against Bakugou’s hand, and he let you, increasing his own pace and pressure until you were shaking and panting. He kept his pace steady. Your hand shot out to grab his free hand, and he intertwined your fingers. “That’s it, Precious. Let go.” And so you did, with a gasp and a shudder. Bakugou’s touch stayed steady through your orgasm, his fingers not leaving you until you collapsed back into the nest, panting. He brushed his mouth to yours before he pulled back and maneuvered you into spreading your legs.

He touched gently and you sucked in a breath with a hiss. The pain was more intense now, mixing with the pleasurable feelings equally. Bakugou kissed your knee. “It’s time for our eggs. You need to start pushing, Treasure. You can do it.”

You weren’t half as confident as he seemed to be, but the tightening of your abdomen rather clearly indicated that you weren’t going to get much choice in the matter. You groaned as you felt the eggs shift inside you. It was so strange, but at the same time felt right. Your belly squeezed, and as it did you pushed. You gasped and moaned, half in pain, half in pleasure. You had never been stretched like this before, and you had only just begun. Your hands gripped the blankets underneath you, as you pushed again with a whine. The fuzziness in your brain helped cut the pain, but it did nothing to ease the pure intensity. Your nerves were singing. All it would take is just one touch…

And Bakugou was more than happy to provide that touch. He thumbed over your clit and you saw stars. You screamed as you came, the tightening of your muscles pushing the egg down further. There was no relief, the curve of the egg nudging against your g spot. You moaned as you tried to gather more energy to push again. Your mate wasn’t helping matters, as his hands roamed your body. The touch was meant to comfort, and it did, but it was also arousing you more by the second. You squirmed, not sure if you wanted to lean into the sensation or pull away. You couldn’t focus enough to make up your mind as you were once again consumed with the need to push. And so push again you did, the egg sliding further down.

“I can see it, Treasure. Just a few more pushes and it will be out. You’re doing so well for me. Such a good mate.” Bakugou crooned, stroking over your opening where the egg was just starting to peek out. You whined, blood rushing to your cheeks as you nodded weakly. Your breath was coming in ragged gasps as you tried to collect yourself for the last few pushes. Your next push rang another orgasm out of you as the largest part of the egg slid past your g spot. Your opening was stretched tighter than it ever had been. Bakugou crooned encouragement. And then with one more push, there it was. In a daze you marveled at the egg your mate cradled in his hands. Orange and gold, larger than you had anticipated. Bakugou gently tucked it into the other side of the nest.

“You did so well, Precious. Look at what you made.”

“What we made.” You murmured back. You were rewarded by seeing a flush creep up your mate’s neck until his ears were bright red. He nodded, keeping his eyes on the egg a few minutes more before turning back towards you. “We’re not done yet, Treasure. Need to get the rest of that clutch out of you.”

You groaned, staring down at your still large belly, feeling as eggs continued to shift inside you, making their way down. It was going to be a long night. But as you gazed at your mate, you didn’t think it was just the amulet that was making you feel like everything would be alright.

The second egg came quicker than the first, and the third quicker than the second. You were grateful, because even though the last few were easier, you still were exhausted and covered with sweat by the end. Though some of that might have also been the orgasms that had continuously been rung from your overstimulated body. The warm fuzzy feeling of the amulet was starting to fade, and you were rapidly becoming aware of just how tired and sore you were. You turned your head to watch as Bakugou gathered and tended to the eggs. There were five total, all similar, with just enough variation in color to tell them apart. He had moved them to a new area, building up a nest with sand. You could tell he was telling you why, but you were too tired to pay attention to the words he was saying. Instead you let the drone of his low voice lull you to sleep.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The following days had been… strange. Or maybe strange in how they weren’t strange. Bakugou had cared for you and the eggs while you healed, which had only taken a few days. He spent much more time in his full dragon form, curled protectively around you and the nest of eggs. He hardly let you get up, so you spent a lot of time talking. He explained what he knew about what the eggs needed. The warmth of a dragon’s body, the occasional flames of the fire, gentle turning, and so much more. You asked how he knew so much, and he told you about how things used to be. How the area used to be home to a large flight of dragons that had protected the land and its inhabitants. He talked about his mother, who was larger and fiercer than himself, his father who was calmer but could grumble like the thunder in the sky when he chose. He told stories about the trouble he and his friends used to get into, and how the older dragons used to chew them out. For the most part, you simply listened, but eventually one question had to be asked.

“Then… What happened?” You asked quietly. “Why were you here alone?”

Bakugou was silent for a time. Just when you thought he wasn’t going to answer, he spoke again.

“There were some dragons who were… destructive. We didn’t take the treat seriously until it was too late. The humans had been turned against dragonkind. Though they were smaller, they were clever. They came after us with weapons and magic in great force. They weren’t interested in anything we tried to tell them. For a while we tried to hold our ground, to keep our land. It didn’t work. I was injured badly in the fights and fled into the caverns to recover. By the time I was healed, everyone was gone. Humans, dragons, everyone. Nothing left but scorched earth. I chose to wait here, to see if anyone would return, but no one ever has. Now, there’s only me.”

Your heart ached for him and the weary loneliness in his voice. You curled up against him and for the first time while clear headed, pressed a few soft kisses to the parts of him you could reach. He gave a surprised huff before nuzzling you with his large head. The two of you were quiet the rest of the evening, just taking comfort in each other’s presence.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You had a problem.

You had found the way out.

You hadn’t even been looking for it. Not really. You had been walking the caverns while Bakugou had slept, curled around your eggs. There wasn’t much else to do. You had read his small collection of books, and you knew better than to set foot in his kitchen without him. So, you had crept out to explore a bit. You had wandered aimlessly, mentally keeping track of your turns. A smell you couldn’t quite place had wafted through the air, and you had followed the scent, not really thinking. You weren’t expecting to round a corner and suddenly be greeted with sunshine, rustling grass, tall trees, and delicate wildflowers.

You were out. For the first time in months, you were out. A laugh escaped you before you clamped a hand over your mouth to prevent making more noise. You were out! And the dragon who had kept you here was still slumbering, unaware that you were out. You looked around wildly. The area wasn’t anything you had seen before. But that didn’t matter much. If you could just figure out what direction was what, you could… You could…

Your thoughts stalled and you reached up to fiddle with the comfortable weight of the amulet around your neck. For the first time, you reached up and slipped the leather strap over your head. It dangled from your fingers heavily. You wanted to be absolutely certain that your next few thoughts were your own.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Bakugou awoke slowly, with a small inkling that something wasn’t right. He blinked slowly, looking around before he began stretching. He didn’t want to injure his mate or their eggs, after all. His mate was not in their nest, which wasn’t unusual. He nosed the eggs, rumbling out a low pleased sound. His eggs. If his friends could only see him now…

He blew out a low stream of fire, making sure each egg was nice and toasty warm before he stretched and shifted into his smaller and more human form. He glanced around the cavern, frowning when he could not immediately spot his mate. He had grown used to finding her reading. He made a mental note to see if he could sneak into the city and procure more books for her. His mate deserved spoiling after all. And right now, he was going to spoil her with some food. If he could figure out where she had gotten to, that is.

Bakugou poked his head into the kitchen, nothing. He checked the bathing chambers, without success. His brow furrowed as he went and poked around the silks and furs or the hoard, checking to see if she had curled up somewhere. “Treasure?” he called quietly at first. He raised his volume as his search continued to be fruitless, his panic rising. “Y/N? ANSWER ME!” He was met only with his own echo.

Surely she couldn’t have… Not after all this time. He thought they were… He thought…

With a roar, he surged out of the cavern, growing as he raced forward. He guts twisted as his thoughts swirled. Not again. He couldn’t be alone again. Please, he… Bakugou violently shoved those thoughts down, trying his best to only focus on his rage. He was going to find her. He was going to drag her back and chain her to the fucking wall if he had to. She is HIS and she would damn well learn that!

Bakugou burst out into the sunlight, growling as he took ragged breaths. He needed to catch her scent, to find the little fool before some humans did. He swung his enormous head from side to side and suddenly stilled.

There you were. You were sprawled out, asleep on a rock. You were laying on your stomach, your wings stretched out, soaking up the sun. The amulet lay on the rock beside you. Bakugou cautiously moved closer.

The tremors of the ground caused you to stir, and you fluttered your wings before you stretched, sitting up with a yawn. You blinked up at the massive dragon towering over you and smiled softly.

“Hello, Love. I’m sorry I worried you, I didn’t mean to fall asleep.”

You reached out your arms to him, making grabbing motions. Bakugou didn’t hesitate a second before shrinking and changing just enough so that he could swing you into his arms, holding you tightly enough that it was just on the edge of being painful. You hugged him in return, nuzzling his neck and pressing kisses there. The two of you would need to have a long conversation later, curled against each other. But for now, it was time for your mate to take you home.

#katsuki bakugo x reader #bakugou x reader #bakugou x y/n #bakugou x you #katsuki x you #dragon bakugou #reader insert #not sfw #bakugou katsuki #reader is female #female reader #egg preg #egg laying #dragon reader

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goodqueenaly · 9 months

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Hi again! I had a follow-up question from your response a while back about the waif’s origin story. I feel like this is probably a thorny topic so I want to be deliberate in how I phrase it. Do you think Would the Faceless Men perhaps not consider taking in the waif as part of an exchange as at odds with the anti-slavery stance of the city? To be clear, I don’t suggest her situation equivalent to slavery, but more in a general sense that a person is being traded away w/ their agency/life choice

I apologize for wording it insensitively.

I don’t think you worded it insensitively, myself.

Anyway, I think it is fair to consider the ethical implications of a society or institution which accepts people as payment for services. However, I think there are a few points to keep in mind here. Number one, I think the Faceless Men almost certainly consider slavery evil. When Arya angrily (and justifiably) complains that the historical first Faceless Man “should have killed the masters!" (emphasis in original), the kindly man replies that this first Faceless Man “[brought] the gift to them as well … [sic] but that is a tale for another day”. Likewise, TWOIAF advances a theory that the Doom was caused by the “assassinations of too many of the reputed mages who renewed and maintained the rituals that banked the fires of the Fourteen Flames”, which may indeed be (and I think likely is) the tale to which the kindly man alludes. Nor should this attitude on the part of the Faceless Men be particularly surprising for an institution centered in Braavos (and seemingly exclusively so), a city which both literally owes its existence to resistance to slavery and maintains a staunch anti-slavery position unique to the Free Cities.

Number two, the House of Black and White does operate, at least in some sense, as a religious temple. There is a long tradition in our own world of parents giving their children to a variety of religions or religious houses, to be raised as priests or other similarly dedicated figures within that faith, and this practice does not seem to be totally unknown in Terros either. While I don’t believe this happens with the House of Black and White on a super common basis - I think the Faceless Men specifically demanded the waif to temper the father’s incentive for murderous revenge in his prayer to Him of Many Faces - I could see where the House of Black and White has participated in a practice common enough to various religions. These children are not sold but rather, in the eyes of their parents and devotees of those respective faiths, offered to a particular god, for the service of that god. Likewise, while average Braavosi may not precisely worship Him of Many Faces, they certainly know about the services (for lack of a better term) offered at the House of Black and White and understand (so Jaqen H’gar informs Arya) the secret code to recognize and give proper deference to the assassin-priests of the Many-Faced God.

Number three, Arya’s own treatment by the House of Black and White, as well as the way the kindly man speaks about the waif, may suggest that the waif had (relatively speaking) a bit of agency in whether or not she became a full Faceless Men agent and assassin. On a number of occasions, the kindly man offers to let Arya go, to end her training as a Faceless Man and even to find her alternate employment in Braavos. Nor does the kindly man merely try to tempt Arya away from this life: he warns her in no uncertain terms that she must pay a heavy price, “all you have and all you ever hope to have”, if she should ever have a chance of joining their order. More to the the point, the kindly man informs Arya that the waif “gave Him [sic] all she was, all she ever might have been, all the lives that were within her” in order to become a Faceless Man herself. Put together, I think the waif may well have been afforded the same choice we see given to Arya, and told that to become a servant of the Many Faced God she would have to willingly surrender her entire self (not to mention pass all the associated training). While we cannot say for certain what specific alternatives the House of Black and White might have proposed (compared to, say, those the kindly man lists to Arya), I think it’s at least possible that at some point, the kindly man or another priest had a serious heart-to-heart with the waif and determined whether she could, and would, choose to become a Faceless Man.

#asoiaf meta #faceless men #the waif

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egelantier · 6 months

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rimworld, the addiction

i promised a post about rimworld somewhere an entirety away, and even if i did, by now i was playing it exclusively, a bit every day, for something like half a year, so i think it deserves some kind of an entry in my journal either way.

preface: usually when i describe games here, i put in some kind of a note how this or that game is very casual user friendly (because i am a casual user), and you can play it if you never played stuff, and so on. rimworld is not quite that game. it’s very much a gamer’s game, in a sense that its UI looks like an unholy cross of “hello, world!” programming and an excel spreadsheet, it’s incredibly counterintuitive, it takes from ten to twenty minutes to load on the average (and the loading screen looks like it crashed meantime), and it wants you to suffer. if you play any amount of time, you’re going to inevitably end up with hundred to two hundred mods, and to make the game move with all those mods you’ll have to follow the easily-accessible tutorials with advice like “install this handy Python program” and “Select "BC7 Texconv compressor" on the middle bottom.” and the complexity of the game’s inner system makes its own tutorial - well - it will tell you that you colony needs a freezer for food to outlive the winter, but you will have to intuit by yourself that to make this freezer you’ll have to build a double-walled room of just the right side, put in two air conditioner users set one degree celsius apart from each other to minimize the power load, don’t forget to build double-door airlocks to account for the temperature spikes when the door opens and adjust it by the variety in your biome’s climate. and don’t even get me started on killboxes! this is to say, you’re going to be watching youtube and reading guides. a lot.

(OKAY it’s not THAT bad and you mostly need to be able to know where the mod folder is and how to follow detailed instructions. but by the standards by today’s, increasingly mobile and under-the-hood gaming, it’s practically NASA. even minecraft is more user-friendly in comparison.)

and yet like i said: hordes of rabid fans, literally months of addictive playing, thousands of mods, active scene. why? and what the hell is it? let’s see.

rimworld as a setting is a procedurally generated world in a galaxy far, far away (that takes its setting inspiration from firefly, star wars, a bit of dune, and a general space opera vibe), with diverse climate biomes (from ice sheets to arid deserts, from temperate forests to tropical swamps), inhabited by a variety of friendly and unfriendly flora and fauna and a multitude of friendly and very unfriendly tribes, factions, empire remnants and such. they send each other (and you) raids and trade caravans, and overall just try to survive.

“you" is an unspecified entity (some speculate that you might be an orbital AI, but it doesn’t quite matter) in charge of a group of your “pawns,“ aka colonists - little blobby humanoid representations of either baseline or gene-modified humans that, in a variety of scenarios, find themselves on the unhospitable surface of rimworld either literally butt-naked or with a scant handful of resources, and have to survive and build their way up from a hovel and a campfire to the ultratech spacefaring colony. pawns have their own backstories, traits, needs and health condition; they form relationships, meet their relatives, get together, make up, break up, marry, divorce, make children, mourn their lost people, keep pets, suffer from mental breaks and so on. you can give them direct orders in some occasions, like the battle, but for most of the time you’re going to give them priorities based on their skillset, and watch them do their things on their own, which is alternately fun, touching and infuriating.

your colony’s experience in rimworld is governed by one of the (canonically) three “storytellers,” aka AIs, who’re in charge of sending you various events - enemy raids, wanderers joining in, solar eclipses, manhunting packs of rabid enemies, crop blights, weather anomalies and so on. each storyteller has several levels of intensity, from ‘peaceful’ (it’ll keep weather events and random angry animal attacks, but cut out everything related to hostile pawns, like raiders) to ‘death is inevitable,’ and also has their own style: phoebe just wants you to have a good time, cassandra provides a linear progression of difficulty and alternates ‘bad’ and ‘good’ challenges, and randy just doesn’t give a fuck and WILL get your colony attacked by mechanoids, manhunting yorkshire terriers and pig-human raiders on the same day your favorite melee fighter died and all the electricity cut out, just for the hell of it.

the intended (loosely) gameplay is to randomise your colonists, pick up a storyteller on a medium difficulty, set the game to ‘only save on exit, permadeath’ setting and let your colony tell its own history by surviving as much as it can, mourning its losses and celebrating its wins, and eventually succumbing to the entrophy (or, less likely, achieving one of the win conditions - building a spaceship and getting off the planet, decoding an ancienty mystery to join up with a techmegabrain, hitching a ride with the imperial ship after gladhanding the emperor and his escort in style for a set amount of days, etc.). but the beauty of rimworld is that between the granular difficulty settings and mods you’re able - and welcome - to finetune your experience to the exact specific level of challenge and/or chill you want. don’t care for the fighting at all and just want to build your colony and select the right shade of the carpets? put it on peaceful. don’t mind raiders but fuck those guys who airpod in the middle of your base or breach your walls? the turtle mod is your friend. raiders are fine, but you want to dig your way into the mountain without being afraid of giant insect infestations? turn those assholes off. want to min-max your experience and fight literal horders of enemies every ten minutes? either max out the difficulty or install one of the thousand of mods like combat extended or whatever, that add difficulties and mechanics.

and meanwhile the game - that looks deceptively simple on the outside, build this, harvest this - is stuffed with overcomplicated intersection of various systems creating weird outcomes. it’s a bit minecraft and a bit dwarf fortress and a bit sims and emergent gateways all the way. your little pawns follow the tenets of their ideoligions, get upset over seeing corpses or eating mushrooms, go into berserk rages after eating without a table one too many times, make friends, celebrate the defeat of their rivals and get attached to random squirrels. they can interact with other inhabitants of rimworlds by trading and diplomacy, or indulge in raiding, piracy, enslavement, ritualized murder, forced conversions, cannibalism or non-consensual organ and gene harvesting. a starved pawn on a frozen ice will eat somebody’s body and feel bad about it… unless they come from a society of cannibals, in which case it would be fine and dandy, but they might be upset about eating their human meat in an untidy room, you know? some precepts require the colonists to worship blindness; some of them make people hate the sight of the sun, and some require worshipping every tree and never kill an animal. it’s all, to put it simply, complicated.

and then, of course, mods. the game is created to be as mod-friendly as possible, and so there are literal thousands of them, and they reflect the multifaceted insanity of the world in the most hilarious ways. the most-downloaded mod overall is called wall lights and allows you, well, to put lamps on the wall. the other popular one is called “war crimes,” and you can probably infer its purpose from the title. there are mods that prettify, fully change or customise the chunky UI; mods that clean up or straight up rewrite the graphics; mods that make your little blobby guys look anime and sexy (it’s hilarious); mods that turn rimworld into warhammer 40k, or star wars, or mass effect, or lord of the rim, or a lovecraftian nightmare, or some combination thereof. my favorite of the moment is the collection centered around medieval overhaul, a clever and beautiful bundle that turns the gritty space opera into the fully realized medieval town builder - with smithies and bakeries and castle walls and knight plumages. it takes some time to cobble together a collection that works (and then make sure it all hangs together, and learn to use rimsql, and figure out what the hell defs are and why your log is giving you errors, and change the order of mods a thousand times, and make sure you did not accidentally turn your squirrels into unstoppable death machines while trying to add some prettier capes to your tailor bill), but on practice it means that pretty much every person playing will have their own unique copy of the game, vastly different from what somebody next to them is playing.

like i said above, the intended gameplay is the triumph and misery of playing through as is; but i’m having one of the shittiest years of my entire life, and so almost every day i would load it up and watch the progress of my little medieval towns from one lost person in the wood trying to figure out how to spin flax into thread into little blooming towns, with nothing to distract me. there’s something of bird-watching or flower-pressing to this experience: you set up the conditions and you set up your priorities (or install ‘free will’ and then tear your hair out over your pawns avoiding research and cleaning their floor while winter is looming ahead and they need to figure out how to make parkas) and then you watch how it all unfolds, and you can sprinkle in a bit of a challenge, or you can just watch them grow and mix up and change and misbehave and be silly and transform, and transform, and transform. it more or less saved my sanity. it’s a very specific kind of experience - i built a monastery with a winery and an apothecary’s dark corner in one map, and a small mountain hideaway for a runaway princess in another, and a rough-and-tumble tundra city in third, and so on - and i saw people building unstoppable war machines instead, or trying to survive specific unfair scenarios, or roleplaying, or multiplayering, or minmaxing with spreadsheets and calculators, or all of the above - and god, is it good. is it so goddamn good.

so! whether you want to play it or have ran away screaming by this time, i hope you enjoyed this silly writeup. and if you do want to start playing, don’t hesitate to ask me stuff! or like share my list of mods and so on.

#rimworld #rimworld rec #game rec #games to spend months in #everything is a story

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ninjapaste · 1 year

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Should have posted these like a good while ago but here they are!!

These are the first few drawings I made of these two octavio kids and I will post more recent drawings of them soon, of which there are many because I still cannot stop drawing them!!

Description under the cut:

Oriana and Orion are part of the Octavio family (with Octavio being their grandfather) and much like their many cousins, siblings and other relatives, they contribute to different industries in the octarian world.

With a family that specialises in manufacturing weaponry and other supplies to the military, Both Oriana and Orion are often designing and testing these weapons, even accompanying octarian troops to assist them with these high-tech gadgets and mechs.

Their designs are based off of what DJ Octavio uses in his attacks in game, specifically takoyaki (octopus balls) and wasabi. I based their styles off of these foods for Orion and Oriana respectively.

Oriana is very passionate about her role in the family business, and even more so about better than everyone else. Her self-confidence never lacks and the same goes for her ruthless and dominating attitude, which, coupled with her goal to become the future general of the Octarian army, makes her a force to reckoned with among all her cousins. Oriana approaches most people with an air of subtle intimidation and sass which makes her seem apathetic and mocking to many. She dervies pleasure from showing the inferiority of those she perceives as competition, especially her brother who she uses as a punching bag on the daily. A person who thrives from conflict and coming out on top, its honestly giving Azula ngl 🤷.

Orion is far from anything like Oriana, both in reality and in the eyes of the family. He can be very spiteful and insecure, especially at a time in his life where he is stuck between being what others want him to be and exploring what he wants. Unlike Oriana, he finds little interest in contributing to the octarian military (other than his really cool special octobot mech) and wants to generate income for the family through his own business and trade (in and out of octarian society). As an enemy he can be quite intimidating on his own but is always outperformed by Oriana when they are together. The two cannot hold a conversation without arguing or Orion being absolutely grilled, which leads to Orion having issues with his temper and trust of others (which he sorts out in the future with some help and grows to just not care what others think and love life!). He wants to be sociable with others but not only is he the loser brother who is always in his flop era, he often has to wear a mask and collar that helps him deal with his damaged and uncontrollable salivary glands and this makes talking really hard so yeah. Sucks to be him 😭.

So in short here is girlboss, gaslight and gatekeep sister and flop brother who find as many ways to avoid each other as possible!! ☺️☺️☺️

#art #digital art #character art #fanart #artwork #oc #splatoon #sketch #procreate #octoling #dj octavio #octavio

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apollotronica · 2 months

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APOLLO CAN U TELL ME ABOUR ON E OF UR OCS.. i was thinkin about how hearing u talk ab them kinda inspired me to actually pick my projects back up and also i think they r sick as helll :3 pretty pleaase ? ./NF!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

OKAY SORRY THIS TOOK ME SO LONG TO REPLY I WAS STUCK IN THE LABRYNTH (i couldnt decide which oc to talk about) BUT i relauzed i havent really talkrd about hiiro at all on here :3 EVERYTHING UNDER CUT and ill format it like i formatted the buwan post :3

this hiiro (left image most recent) ignore thr typology on the right its outdated

fun facts :3

likes: warm cloudy weather, bright lights, computers and technology, large cities, classic literature, anatomy and neurology, strong flavors, squid ink pasta

dislikes: most people, sunny days, manual labor, following orders, bland food, going outside, trains and train stations, getting wet

nationality: japanese

relatives: (adoptive) mother and father, elder sister (pacchi, 2 years older), younger sister (heru, 3 years younger)

early life (sort of???) (cw child injury/neglect, bullying, ableism?)

disclaimer i havent Fully fleshed out its backstory so this will just be a large summary of . stuff that Occured

hiiro and his sisters were put up for adoption almost immediately after heru was born (hiiro being 3, pacchi being 5) and they took turns taking care of her bcuz their parents were too "busy" to hire babysitters. hiiro and pacchi got into a fight while heru (like toddler age atp) tried to break them up. because hiiro has always been quick to anger and sort of physical, when heru tried to intervene his first instinct was to push her as hard as he could while yelling at her to stay out of it, it doesnt involve her . errmm aftermath of that argument was . heru got permenant brain damage and hiiro and pacchis relationship Completely broke apart :[ aww womp womp . Ok fast forward . heru is homeschooled by a tutor and hiiro and pacchi are both in junior high. pacchi is popular and friendly and pretty, but her grades are lacking . hiiro has always been incredibly smart (even though pacchi is 2 years older, he skipped a school year or two and is in her same year), but his social life is miserable . because of his temper and Overall Unfriendliness he was put in separate classes away from his peers where he was the only student under a teacher who didnt care about hiiro or Pretty much anything . it wasnt seen often but when he Was seen he was beat up n bullied relentlessly n followed home , so a lot of the time he spent nights hidden in the school or in damp alleys because he didnt want to lead anyone dangerous back to pacchi and heru . when he Was home pacchi ignored him and heru would try to make conversation but hiiro was Pretty much entirely nonverbal during their school years . at home hiiro drew and wrote and played like anyone else his age but bcuz hiiro looked different and sounded different and acted different it ended up outcast and alienated :[ womp womp

career ??

aaaanyway yada yada hiiro graduates early n basically disappears into researching neurology n brains n Specifically how theyre "programmed" , they end up lowkey kidnapping a couple people to experiment on them w a janky "neuroprogramming" device that, once hes sure is Safe To Use , hiiro uses on itself :3 the way proples brains show up on the device isnt like an mri or anything , the way it shoes up actually Depends on the person so sometimes itll be a short rpg or lines of code or Minesweeper and because hiiro Made the device they can decipher what each brain thing means and collects data based off that . but because what he does is Very illegal the government eventually tracks him down and forces it to work w them or theyll Krill him .

fun facts part Two :3

hiiro has only had alcohol Once and despite being of legal age they were kicked out for looking too young . he cant hold his liquor

he frequents a gaming cafe and knows all the staff by name but is too embarrassed to be seen in front of other people , so it rents out the whole cafe when it wants to go

hiiro has 3 cats and they are all Huge

after he Reappeared hiiro actually reconnected w his sisters and visits them as often as possible . Its not very affectionate at all though

i actually made his voice claim miyashita yuu . the songs where hes louder and yelling r more what i was thinking at the time , but i think miyayuu's soft speaking voice works as well

all the sleeves on their sweaters are slightly tethered and frayed because he fidgets with them while working . the right sleeve is more torn than the left

he doodles in his free time and has posted a couple oneshots on obscure manga forums . they dont keep up with them but one of them ended up getting really popular

hiiro Loves scifi . his entire apartment is decorated in super lame and obscure scifi anime posters and figures

THANKIES !!!

#☆ apollo answers #artpollo #dude this is so . messy #again i Havent fleshed out jis story much i just have main points But i hope i explained well ... hes so awrsome #apollos ocs #hiiro okashi #theyre albino btw smilr #i ws thinking ab adding mor e to his story cuz rn its kinda BOOOORRRIIIIINNNGGGG but i have no other ideas ...#hiiro was aldo a dnagan oc . ult neuroprogrammet #r #whatever #i coudve talked about like ccheck or cross but thatll come later methinkd #Anyway . enjoy hi.#m #im so tired i need a nap #hi lyria

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es46 · 10 days

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A bird wyvern based on fulmars, with a few quirks added here and there _ PETRA FOWL Title - Putrid bird Monster class - Bird wyvern Known locales - Temperate coastlines, as well as marshland and estuaries Element/ailment - Soiled Elemental weakness - Thunder (2), Fire (2), Dragon (2), Ice (2), Water (1) Ailment weakness - Blast (3), Stun (2), Sleep (2), Paralysis (1), Poison (1) Petra Fowl is a bird wyvern found flocking in colonies along temperate coastlines, as well as venturing across marshlands, estuaries and other aquatic environments. It is distinguished by its waterproof white-and-black feathers, as well as the jagged beak and enlarged tubenose. Able to adapt to a multitude of lifestyles, Petra Fowl excels in finding a niche for itself, allowing the species to proliferate across many locales. An opportunistic omnivore, Petra Fowl can co-exist with many monsters by exploiting whatever niche is least occupied. Its sharp break can as effectively harvest seaweeds and break nuts and fruits as it can dig into carrion or snap up fish and small monsters. Whether scavenging, diving, grazing, Petra Fowl is nigh always guaranteed to get a meal and ensure its survival. To that end, it is known to be relatively docile around humans, who are larger than the usual critters it snaps up. Field workers can comfortably work around Petra Fowl colonies, provided a respectable distance is kept from their nests, though they are advised to use dung pods to prevent any curious bird wyvern from growing too familiar or confident. In terms of combat, Petra Fowl isn't too formidable. Its jagged beak and tail can lash out, but it is hardly as effective as the likes of Hyborlex or Orcina Krai. Its best weapon is a foul oil launched from its enlarged tubenose, a noxious substance that induces Soiled on hunters and usually repels most monsters. Where Petra Fowl excels at is numbers; the bird wyvern gather in colonies, and any predator seeking to attack one may be swarmed by a vast number of them. Petra Fowls mate for life, with a male and female taking turns bringing food back to their brood. Living alongside other pairs in large colonies, the parents diligently raise their young until they are old enough to fly, upon which the colony will partake in a mass migration event. The adults escort the juveniles to new grounds where they may grow independently while the adults return to their pastures. As with many bird wyverns, Petra Fowl is not at all a difficult opponent (Low Rank - 1, High/Master Rank - 1). Still, it can prove cunning in its use of the foul oils, so it makes a handy opponent for novices. Most hunts rarely ever require a Petra Fowl to be slain; usually a repel will suffice. Researchers are more interested in ongoing domestication efforts; rearing Petra Fowl from eggs has been noted to result in relatively docile individuals that may even allow a human to ride on its back. While there is safety in numbers, an individual Petra Fowl is little threat to anything and can become prey to many monsters. However, the bird wyvern finds payback in targeting the juveniles of its rivals; it is quite adept at picking off the young of species where the adults would easily kill a Petra Fowl. In particular, it earns the emnity of the carapaceon Brinataur, who will attack Petra Fowl on sight to defend its brood of Brinelings. - Thank you for reading and take care.

#bird wyvern #wyvern #monster hunter #fanart #sketch #monochrome

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yermes · 10 months

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PAC 🧸

Hi! So heres my current dilemma. I got so many new stickers because I ordered art from a friend and they gave me some stickers and I got a free sticker from dutchies and now I don’t have my moms car window to stick these on and idk where to put them. Putting value in permanence when nothing is permanent not even us is silly yet I want to put it somewhere where I can be reminded of my beautiful friend or that coffee that almost made me shit myself. I often get nostalgia around this time of year where when I was young I associated my phase of life as something almost unchanged something stable and now idk whats going to happen tmrw or the day after. HOW ARE WE DEALING WITH LACK OF PERMANENCE IN OUR LIVES

Pick a meme

Pick a card

Cruelty 🔥

Nine of swords, Mars 2. Gemini, Yesod through air

A crueler aspect on this question is the existential dread which follows and this card seems to captivate the cruelness of thinking. While in the end there is nothing. You think and worry for the future and upcoming phases like its your damn day job but I am here to tell you this. You are more than a flesh suit with feelings. No one is truly gone till every last memory and every last piece of effort you put in to make the world better is gone. And if you leave before I, I will keep you alive. And fuck depending on what paradigm you believe in you could still fuck with your relatives when ya dead lmaooo. Do not dread on nothing being permanent embrace it and celebrate it.

Temperance (reversed) 🌊

Daughter of the reconciles, Samekh, support, marriage of fire and water and continuation of the lovers card, Capricorn ruled by Saturn, and Scorpio ruled by Mars

Reversed means we are getting the discombobulated side of the marriage between water and fire. There is disunion, conflict of interest, and a lot of hostility. Since this is kind of a deeper topic I can imagine your thoughts on this may be very half baked at this point which is what may be causing this. While you are now is very real. As you exist right now at this moment is very real. And as you existed when you were 6 still exists and is also very real it just may not exist in a physical state. The complexities of this question may be worrisome at the moment but its okay to have some discord in your life at times and you do not need to know everything right now. Just do not fight the process of learning.

Peace 🗽

Two of swords, Moon 1. Libra, Chokmah through air

Your undirected ideas of this topic is put to rest you now have a pretty good beginning and end to this conversation. A big part of this card is a compromise between the soul and mind. While the mind may be racing at a topic of which may be difficult to comprehend in your heart you have come to peace with it and can put your free stickers anywhere without any anxiety of weather or not you will see it again because life is all about the different phases and journeys not about the small physical keepsakes because nothing will stay forever anyways.

Six of pents (reversed) 💴

Lord of material success, Tiphareth, Moon in Taurus, 10°–20°, Angels Nemamiah and Yeyelal

A big part of this card in reverse is being “purse proud” and prodigal. Aka only being concerned about wealth with lack of concern for whats around physical wealth and spending money like theres no mother fucking tomorrow. Like us. Wealth isn’t permanent. You may be living in a very carefree and or careless state at the moment and wasting your resources but with all due respect homie while your physical existence may be impermanent you still need to think about tomorrow, your impact, and all the little nuances that go into existing. Your wealth isn’t permanent, your existence isn’t permanent so MAKE IT COUNT.

#suitlifeofgerm #askgerm #pick a card #daily card #pick a picture #magic #shadow work #pac #tarotoftheday #germ reads #divination #cartomancy #witch #I am still stressing over these stickers they are just to cute #oracle #witchblr #beginner witch

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multi-fan-dom-madness · 1 year

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Chapter 2: Cabur (Second Chances - Hunter x reader)

Cabur. n. guardian; protector.

Summary: The rescue mission goes mostly as planned—until it doesn't. You won't let this mission go the way the last one did.

Chapter Warnings: canon-typical violence; Hunter being suspicious; vague impressions of PTSD / flashbacks; if I missed any let me know!

Word Count: 4188

Read it here on AO3!

< Previous chapter | Next chapter >

The flight to Bescane is a relatively short one, just a few hours long. You elect to remain in the cargo hold for the duration, not wanting to stew in silence in the same room as Hunter. Or any of the others, for that matter. You don’t intend to stick around for long after this mission, but nevertheless you still feel the need to hold these people at arm’s length, keep them from seeing you in such an emotional state. The last time you left yourself exposed like this, your friend died. And as hotly as the anger simmers in your belly, you don’t wish death upon any of the people in the cockpit of this ship.

Your leg bounces as you try to modulate your breathing. Thoughts ricochet off the curves of your skull in time with the dull pounding of the headache steadily growing behind your eyes. Hunter’s dark eyes burning with bright anger; Cid’s greed stretching over her face like a well-fed loth-cat; your own desperation, choked in your throat in your desire to be free of this perpetual, headlong flight into danger.

You lurch as the ship drops back into realspace. With a shake of your head, you try to dislodge the chaotic tangle of thoughts, and crouch to rummage through your pack. Holstered at your hips are the familiar weights of your blasters. You know you have everything you need for this mission, but you run through the checklist again to distract yourself. Flashlight, power packs, gas canisters, stun grenades, smoke bombs. It’s all here.

The cockpit door hisses open behind you and you take a steadying breath in through your nose. Hunter’s gaze is set solidly at your feet, his brow furrowed, as he waits by the stair ramp. Lingering in the threshold between the hold and cockpit are Echo and Wrecker, chatting quietly with one another. Omega pushes past them to join Hunter. She gives you a friendly wave, a smile crinkling her eyes. You can barely manage a grimace of a smile in return.

Just get in, get out, and get away. You repeat these words to yourself as Tech pilots the ship down in a bumpy landing.

Bescane is reminiscent of Coruscant in a way; you’d never mistake the smoggy atmosphere and fingerlike factories stretching in nearly every direction for the glittering durasteel cityscape of the capital, but you feel marginally more at ease now in the presence of such dense urban sprawl. Tech landed the ship on the crest of a steep, sandy hill at the edge of the city—far from where you’d landed when you visited this place just a few days ago on your original reconnaissance mission. Your only sense of direction is the setting sun to your right. Its deep orange rays stretch behind smoky clouds across the sky.

Down the dune slope grow scrubby bushes with sparse leaves and thorny branches. None grow higher than your mid-thigh. At the bottom of the slope, the sand quickly scatters across durasteel platforms that wind into the heart of the industrial city. Shadows swallow the gaps between buildings.

“Which way?” Hunter asks as the ramp closes behind you all. His voice is flattened, tempered by the vocabulator of his helmet.

Tech says, “The detention center is—”

“No.” Hunter jerks his chin at you. “This is your mission. Lead the way.”

Your teeth grind as your jaw clenches. Scanning the horizon once more, you can only sigh internally. Your datastick with the location coordinates is still plugged into the ship behind you. Without it, you’ll have to find a terminal to plug into somewhere in the city, assuming you can find one. Kark it all to hell.

Of course, you could just admit that you have zero sense of direction even when you’re not on an unfamiliar planet. And you nearly do, the admission of weakness on your tongue, but something stops you. A memory tugs at your brain: Arien’s laugh when you expressed not wanting to be a burden to her.

Squaring your shoulders, you decide the best thing to do is pick a direction and hope it leads somewhere useful. Feet sinking into the soft sand, you trudge down the slope toward the nearest factory buildings, trusting that the others will follow.

Soft footsteps turn to metallic clangs when you reach the durasteel platform. Instinctively ducking into the deepest shadows, you pause, peering through the growing gloom for any signs of life. The planet’s workforce is mostly droids, you recall, but even mechs need organic lifeforms for basic repairs and maintenance.

“I’m not picking up any humanoid heat signatures,” Tech says. “I shall alert you if that changes.”

Murmuring thanks, you force your spine to straighten out once more to walk ahead normally. At every intersection, you pause, weighing the options. Even with the datastick last time, you’d taken more than a few wrong turns as the two-dimensional displays of three-dimensional spaces refused to translate in your brain. Now, without a map, you feel more keenly a sense of being adrift—searching for the correct path the way you’ve been grasping for a purpose the last several weeks.

You’re painfully aware of the suspicious glares burning into your back. But you still do not want to admit weakness. A nagging sense also makes you suspicious that Hunter is using this as a way to test you. So you continue making random choices about which direction you lead the others. Get in, get out, get away.

“Are you certain this is the right way?” Tech finally asks as you hesitate yet again at a fork in the industrial streets.

You huff and lean against a nearby building, pushing the heel of your palm into your temple to ease some of the pain there. “No.”

“Kriff.” Hunter’s voice is strained, even through the distortion of the helmet. “Echo, Tech, can either of you figure out where we’re supposed to go?”

“Already done,” Tech says, waving his datapad. “I’ve had the city’s schematics pulled up since before we landed.”

“Great.” You grimace as the headache pulses in time with your heart. “Thanks for letting me make a fool of myself.”

“It was not my intention,” Tech states. You nearly hear a hint of an apology in his voice.

You wave his words away. Chewing at the inside of your cheek, you glare at Hunter. “Well? Can he lead now, or are we going to keep walking in circles because you want me to prove my worth to you?”

His helmet tilts to the side, and you get the distinct impression his eyes are narrowed behind that reflective visor. “I knew this was a bad idea.”

Echo shakes his head. “Tech, just get us out of here.”

With a nod, Tech turns back the way you’d just come. Echo gently pushes Hunter to follow, and with obvious reluctance he does, the blank stare of his helmet staying on you as long as possible. You fight the urge to pull a face.

“Coming?” Omega asks, half turned to follow the others.

You sigh and push away from the building. “Yeah. Suppose so.”

With a rumbling chuckle, Wrecker bumps his fist against your shoulder as you step past him. “S’okay. I’m real bad with directions, too.”

“Good to know,” you say flatly.

The big guy laughs again and calls up ahead, “Nice to meet someone with as much attitude as you, Sarge.”

“Wrecker!” Hunter warns over his shoulder.

“Wha?”

You snort a laugh in spite of yourself. Their bicker feels familial, and for some reason that makes your heart ache. And then you take a moment to think on their words again. Sarge? So they are military types. It’s not really a surprise, you suppose, what with the armor and ship. But whose soldiers are they now?

Tech halts abruptly at one intersection, hand raised as he scans the surroundings. Over his shoulder, he whispers, “Life forms approaching from the south.”

“Hide!” Hunter hisses.

Nearly as one unit, the six of you melt into the shadows under a nearby durasteel awning. You do your best to control your breathing, right hand resting on the grip of your holstered blaster, ears straining for any hint of the life forms Tech’ scanners picked up. To your left, Omega ducks her head and tugs the brim of her cap down just a bit farther. To your right, Echo’s slate gray helmet cocks to the side, seeming to listen the way you are.

Two individuals in white plastoid armor traipse past, blaster carbines loosely held in their hands. You stiffen, breath catching in your throat. Sweat slicks your palms. For a moment, the sight of the black t-visor in a field of white shunts you into the past. The scent of ozone cloys in your nostrils as the shriek of blue blaster fire echoes in your ears. You screw your eyes shut. Inhale, get in. Exhale, get out. Inhale, get away. Inhale, get in...

“They’re gone,” Echo murmurs after an indefinite amount of time. “Hey, you okay? We need to keep moving.”

You blink away the memory, returning to the smog-filled city around you. “Right. Yeah. I’m good. Let’s go.” You step away from the grimy wall. Echo falls in step beside you. You expect him to mention what just happened, but instead, he walks in silence as you continue to follow Tech through the labyrinthine streets.

When he does speak, he says, “So, strategizing, tactics, and navigating aren’t your strong suits. Is there anything you can do well?”

You bark a humorless laugh. “I know a little about a lot of things. Medical, weaponry, circuitry. Have to make myself useful somehow.”

He hums. To you, the noise is doubtful.

You continue, “I mean...I’m good with people. Most of the time. I’ve managed to talk Cid into wiping my debt after this mission, and not a lot of people can say that.”

“Fair enough.” He shakes his head. “Maker knows we’re not the most...personable bunch.”

“What, a bunch of ex-soldiers and a kid?” You snort. “Who woulda thought.”

“Hey now,” Echo says with a hint of a smile in his voice. “Listen. Don’t take Hunter being a di’kut too personally. He’ll come around.”

You frown at the unfamiliar word. “I don’t think I’ll be around long enough for that to happen.”

“You two, keep your voices down,” Hunter orders from his place up front.

You do your best to will away the ember of embarrassment heating to life in your chest. Had he heard that entire conversation? You thought you’d been quiet.

By the time you reach a less dense quadrant of the city, night has fully fallen around you. Buzzing street lamps flicker to life, orange light pooling in fifteen-foot increments along the walkways. Smog blocks most of the night sky, only a few exceptionally bright stars twinkling through. Tech expertly and without any further issue leads you to the Imperial compound. The buildings here are shorter, squatter: warehouses instead of factories.

Several of the warehouses ahead of you are ringed by a tall wire fence. Crouching behind a rusty barrier nearby, you risk peeking your head up. “This is the right place.”

“Of course it is,” Tech says. “The question becomes, which of those buildings is the detention facility?”

“There are two buildings with prisoners,” you say. “When I was here last time I only managed to figure out which ones my contacts could be in. Watched some guards take a few people into that third warehouse from the back left up there.”

Echo passes binoculars to Hunter, who takes a moment to scan the entire compound. You chew at the dry skin of your lower lip, eyes flicking around to make sure you’re still alone.

After a moment, Hunter lowers the binoculars with a slow nod. “Two groups. Tech, (y/n), and myself will head for the prison buildings to get the targets out. Echo, Wrecker, Omega—cause a distraction so we can get in and out undetected. We’ll rendezvous here and leave together. Understood?”

A chorus of ‘yes’ from the others. Hunter turns his helmeted gaze to you, and you can only nod. Now that you’re here, you desperately want to be anywhere else—Fod and Vasi can get themselves out or rot for all you care. But Cid’s warning curls around your spine, and you know you have no choice but to follow the two soldiers darting away. You wonder, against your will, if Arien felt like she had a choice in rescuing you.

Not now, you plead with your brain. Get in, get out, get away. Get in, get out, get away.

Hunched in a running crouch, you scurry to the fence line with the other two. Hunter cuts a gap in the twisted wire with a vibroblade, then curls the metal back and ushers you and Tech past before squeezing through, as well.

Without conscious thought, you unholster your blasters. The molded grips are familiar and comforting, and the knot of anxiety in your stomach loosens just a fraction. The three of you track along the exterior walls of the warehouses. When you reach the third one, you slip into the shadows of the alleyway next to it.

Hunter motions for you all to halt ten feet from the other mouth of the alley. “We’ll wait here for the distrac— are those DC-17 blasters?”

“What?” You look down at the weapons in your hands. “Oh. Yeah.”

“Those were standard issue for GAR soldiers only,” Tech states as he taps away on his datapad. “How did you acquire them?”

Your jaw tightens as you peer behind you through the darkness to make sure you’re not being followed. “I stole them.”

It’s not technically a lie; you did steal them. Just...probably not in the way they’re thinking. They’ll just have to forgive you for the half-truth later.

“Right,” Hunter says, and his tone makes it clear he doubts you. “Set them to stun, then. Don’t want to leave a trail of bodies behind us.”

You nod and toggle the required switch.

You don’t have to wait very long for the distraction to come. A massive explosion shakes the ground underfoot, and you flinch with a sharp gasp. A few armored individuals go rushing past your hiding spot, shouting in confusion at one another.

“Move,” Hunter barks.

You sprint after him and Tech to the doors of the warehouse across the pathway. A touchpad lock bolts the corrugated doors shut. Tech plugs in, and after a minute of furiously typing at his datapad, the lock beeps three times and then unlatches. The hinges creak as the door swings inward.

You push past the two men. Inside, the warehouse is almost completely dark. You holster one blaster and reach instead for your flashlight. With a click, a sterile white beam illuminates the immediate area. Instead of the neat, orderly rows of electro-barrier cells you’re expecting, simple cages arranged in four lines extend into the darkness. They all look inhabited. A few prisoners closest to you stir in the sudden bright light.

Lowering the flashlight, you stifle a groan. “Tech, is there any way to get prisoner records?”

He flips his HUD down and scans for a moment. “The requisite terminal does not appear to be in this building.”

With an exasperated sigh, Hunter says, “Who are we looking for?”

“A Duros and a Togruta, both men,” you say. “Go by the names of Fod and Vasi.”

“Then let’s find them and get out of here,” Hunter says.

With a nod, Tech splits away to the rightmost lane, blaster supported overtop his hand that holds his flashlight. Hunter grabs you by the shoulder. Though you can’t see his expression, you imagine him frowning down at you.

“What?” you say.

He seems to hesitate, then shakes his head and releases you. “They better be here.”

As he hurries down the leftmost lane away from you, confusion swirls through your already emotionally taxed brain. That wasn’t really what he wanted to say, was it? But you shake the feeling away as you pace down the lane in front of you. You keep the beam of the flashlight high enough to see facial features, but low enough to avoid disturbing too many other prisoners. The last thing you need right now is to start a commotion.

After a dozen or so cages, the dusty blue skin of a Duros man catches your attention. He’s curled into the fetal position in the center of the cage. You approach, shining the bright light directly at his face. With a groan, his red eyes crack open.

“Who’s there?” he mumbles.

“Someone getting you out,” you say. Tucking the flashlight under your arm, you frown down at the electric lock on the cage door. You probe along the casing’s edge to find where it pops open.

“Oh, shit, is that you, Red?” Fod asks as he crawls toward the door. “It is you!”

“That’s not my name.” You scowl and yank on the yellow wire on the inside of the lock. It powers down and unlatches with a soft click. “Come on. Where’s Vasi?”

“Not sure.” He grunts as he pushes himself up on unsteady legs. His already ashen features pale a tinge further, and now that you let yourself look at him, your stomach twists at how loose his clothes hang from his frame, the swollen welt under his right eye, the way he cradles his left arm close to his body.

“Alright, well, I’ve got...colleagues searching for him.”

He hobbles after you as you lead the way back to the front entrance. “Colleagues?”

“I don’t want to karkin’ hear it,” you snap. If a commotion is the last thing you need, then a teasing remark from Fod is the second to last thing you need.

“Wasn’t gonna say nothin’,” he grumbles.

Pointedly ignoring him, you peek out the open door. In the distance, the flash of blue and red blaster fire brightens the sides of the surrounding buildings. The distraction still seems to be working, at least.

Footsteps make you turn. Hunter rounds the corner a moment later, empty-handed.

“Tech is—”

“Right here.” Tech and a bruised Togruta man shuffle around the other corner. Vasi, like Fod, has seen better treatment. He’s limping badly enough that Tech supports most of his weight.

“Red?” Vasi asks, voice weak.

You sigh in irritation, but any retort you want to hurl at him is cut short by Hunter.

“Got both targets,” he says, holding fingers up to the side of his helmet. “Can you keep them occupied for another minute or two? ... Alright. Yes. See you there.” He gestures to the open doorway. “Change of plans. We’re heading to the ship. The others are still leading the guards away from us.”

You’re no navigator, but even you know that it took you a while to get to this compound. “How far is the ship from here?”

Tech raises his datapad with his free hand. “Approximately half a klick. We will not be taking the scenic route back as we did coming in.”

Your body flushes at his words, but you don’t detect any malice in them. With one curt nod, you try to position yourself at the back of the group, but Hunter nudges you to the front.

“Where I can see you,” he says.

“Sir, yes, sir,” you mutter.

He hmphs loud enough to be heard through his helmet. You almost imagine that if he wasn’t such a stubborn ass, you’d actually find this strange power play amusing. As it is, you roll your eyes and poke your head out the door. The pathway in either direction still seems clear, so you gesture for the others to follow. Fod remains behind you, with Tech and Vasi next, and Hunter bringing up the rear. You’re confident you can at least get back to the split in the fence, but after that... You’ll deal with it when you get there.

Shutting off your flashlight and tucking it away, you check your surroundings one more time before jogging back across to the other row of warehouses. The sound of blasters and shouting grows steadily louder as you approach the fence line, but you still can’t see anyone, only able to hear the commotion just beyond sight.

You duck through the cut in the fence and grab the sharp edge to pull the gap wider.

Hunter groans. “(y/n), no wait—”

“Hey!” a voice shouts. “Freeze! Leave the blaster on the ground and stand up real slow!”

Kriff! You look back through the wire fence at Hunter and Tech, who are inching backward. You nod at them, then slowly turn to face the white plastoid helmet approaching you, blaster raised.

“Am I freezing or am I standing up?” you ask.

“Don’t play smart with me, civilian. Drop your weapon.”

You flick the safety on and drop the blaster by your foot, your other hand still gripping the painful wire fence. A hard, uncomfortable lump lodges itself in your esophagus, both hot and cold at the same time. This is the closest you’ve been to an Imp since before Arien busted you out of that cell on Vandor.

Footsteps approach from the other side. A glance in your periphery reveals two more white-clad soldiers.

“This isn’t one we’ve been chasing,” one of the newcomers says, in a voice identical to the first. “Any chance they’re working together?”

“Likely,” the one in front of you says in a clipped voice. “The other blaster, get rid of it, now.”

You move as slowly as you dare, trying to give the others a chance to find another way out of the compound. “You’re going to regret this.”

The soldier in front of you presses the cold muzzle of their carbine against your chest. “One more smart comment from you and—”

Two blue stun blasts come arcing out of the darkness, and two of the troopers drop with grunts of pain and clattering of plastoid. The one holding you at blaster-point spins. You’re quick to draw your own blaster, but not quick enough to fire off a stunning shot before another one slams into him from up ahead.

You stumble back, heart racing wildly in your chest. Echo and Wrecker emerge from behind several crates, their blasters trained on the unconscious guards at your feet. Omega peeks out from behind Wrecker, a glowing purple plasma bow loosely drawn in her hands.

“Th-Thanks,” you rasp.

“Don’t mention it,” Echo says. “Come on. We’re not out of this yet.”

As the rest of the group pushes through the fence, you retrieve your discarded blaster with shaking fingers. Get a grip. You’re supposed to be a professional. But no matter how sternly you reprimand yourself, you can’t swallow past the lump in your throat.

Echo leads the mad dash back to the ship. You take a series of dizzying and bewildering turns around sharp corners, your half-frantic brain not even trying to keep track of where you’re going. Behind you, shouts bounce off the durasteel buildings. You push your legs harder.

When you break from the city proper, the ship resting where you’d left it at the top of the sandy hill, you nearly sob in relief.

And then a blaster bolt screams past your head. You flinch, stumbling. Your thighs turn to molten lava as you charge up the steep slope, lungs gasping for air, brain pounding. The ship ramp lowers in anticipation. Blaster fire streaks past, impacting into the sand at your feet, pushing you faster. This is too familiar. Bile stings the back of your throat, but you dig your feet harder into the ground in desperation.

Ahead of you, Wrecker grunts in pain as a blaster bolt catches the back of his right shoulder. He topples forward, then backslides down the hill toward you.

You skid to a halt, trembling. No. No no no no not again. Not again!

“Wrecker!” Omega’s scream pierces the night air. She struggles against Hunter as he practically drags her the rest of the way, shouting, “Leave him, Omega! He’ll be alright!”

Blaster bolts continue to zing past you. Some crash against the ship’s hull, some send up sprays of sand around you, some go wide completely. You brace your legs as Wrecker slides toward you, and the force of his momentum pushes you back several feet before you both come to a rest.

“Wrecker?” Your voice is thick, distant.

He groans and clutches his shoulder.

And suddenly the night is crystal clear. Every grain of sand is as sharp and defined as the sleek lines of the ship, every shaky breath as clear in your ears as the shouts of pursuit from the Imperials behind you. With a breath in, you yank both blasters out of their holsters and pivot, standing tall over Wrecker, raining blaster fire down on the soldiers. A ragged shout tears from your throat.

You won’t let another squadmate die at the hands of the Empire. You won’t let him die at their hands. You can’t bear the possibility.

#tbb hunter x reader #hunter x reader #the bad batch x reader #rhiwrites #second chances #hunter x gn!reader

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uefb · 1 year

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Why do you think there’s a pattern of Theseus being abusive/overly aggressive in Fantastic Beasts fanfic? It’s been driving me up the wall trying to find Newt and Theseus fanfic that doesn’t make them OOC especially Theseus, and idk, in the context of Newt being Autistic I find it disturbing. Like sure, Theseus is hot-headed and loses his temper, he doesn’t always understand Newt, but those traits seem overtly exaggerated in a lot of fandom content.

Obsessed with this ask. I have been thinking about it all day, and am just now getting to write it up! Thinking about it in the background of my statistics class almost singularly got me through its sensory and anxiety hell. /sweat-laugh emoji/ So thank you!

Please remember, all of this is based on my own perspectives, knowledge, and headcanons, as well as canon clues. Nothing here is definitive and is open for respectful conversation! (Not directed specifically at you, salamander, just since this is a public blog I like to cover my bases. ^_^)

Buckle up: major autistic info dump incoming

Alright, so, my initial thoughts are that...

Obviously, there was a decent chunk of Newt fic written between 2016 and 2018 before CoG came out, that first film where we really got to see Theseus as a character, for who he really is (especially since they cut that letter from him to Newt at beginning of FBWTFT, that starts with "little brother," which is just pretty endearing). IMHO, this two-year gap means people had a wide open playing field to build the character themselves. Here's a few thoughts on that:

The framework for the entire Wizarding World, narratively, is the Harry Potter series. Boy wizard, shunned by family, isolated from socialization -- Outcasts have always been the backbone of She-who-must-not-be-named's stories. It's compelling. We love it, we lap it up. With only one FB film out before 2018 and Newt being such a unique protagonist, I think it's likely people fell back on the more typical Harry-Dudley trope to create a compelling backstory for Newt, using that tried-and-true fantasy Cinderella-type trope.

Second, from what I can tell, there was a lot less serious consideration of Newt actually being autistic in the early years of the fandom. (I only "joined" relatively recently myself, despite going to the first 2 movies on opening day, but I'm nothing if not fastidious in consuming every scrap of historical content when I develop a new interest, lol.) I've read pages of threads and plenty of "think pieces" attributing Newt's behavior to trauma-related social anxiety and/or his profession as a magizoologist. I absolutely buy the latter (adjusting body language for one's profession), but not entirely the former. (Personally, Newt doesn't strike me as an inherently anxious person--he strikes me as an inherently autistic one who also sometimes experiences anxiety. Discomfort and anxiety aren't the same thing, but people often conflate them, imho.) Anyway, THAT BEING SAID, I've noticed in quite a few fics that people write Theseus as being part of that implied social trauma, via sibling bullying that rises beyond typical sibling harassment. People perhaps tried to explain Newt's behavior by making him, at the very least, overshadowed by Theseus (and ashamed of it) or, at the very worst, abused and/or neglected by his family.

Also, quite simply: people process their own family trauma via fic. I think it's highly likely Theseus just served a sibling or parental role for some people in stories. (The abundance of abusive!Thranduil fic in the LotR fandom in the early 00s is another example of this.) Nothing wrong with using fic to process feelings and life experiences (god knows I do, it's horrifically obvious and always has been lmao), but this bulletpoint is still one explanation for the pre-CoG "Theseus being a dick in fic" phenomenon.

Plus, fanfic doesn't occur in a vacuum. Even when new canon info comes out, existing fic and whatever the going/contemporary fanon is often impact how new writers write their characters, even post-CoG. (And how those characterizations are received by the larger fandom--that reception may subsequently impact how writers maintain or change their characters in the future, imho.)

As for the current reasons Theseus is often OOC in post-CoG fic...

Well, I have my theories, but I am also not entirely sure. However, I feel pretty confident it has to do, primarily, with points 1 and 4.

Leta Lestrange and the Scamander Brothers - Honestly, I think people likely are pretty offended on Newt's behalf for the Leta/Theseus marriage. In mainstream media, we're kind of trained to think that dating your friend's ex is ultimate betrayal--it's difficult for people to imagine a world in which a person who marries their brother's ex is a good person. (...I was once in a friend group where we had all dated the same girl at some point, but we were all either ridiculously honest or autistic so we just--wait for it--talked about it and moved on.) That being said, I never read Leta & Newt as overtly romantic (then again, I also didn't know Bunty liked Newt until the 4th time I watched CoG), so I don't entirely get this one to the degree that I think some people viscerally feel this. But I expect some people see that and assume it says something much larger about Theseus' character than it does. (I do think it says a lot about Theseus that he loves Leta, but I don't think it says the same things about him that some other people do -- I think it speaks more to his similarities to Newt [compassion and positive outlook] than it does to stealing Newt's Hogwarts sweetheart. But I digress.)

Something Did Happen at Some Point - Now, there is undeniably a distance between the brothers that we, as viewers, don't necessarily know the origin of. (So I think I may have mentioned in my letters that [my brother & I] have quite a complicated relationship. // Does he want to kill you? // Frequently.) Have they always been like that? Is it new? Is it because of the age difference? Because they have different personalities? (Though I will argue until I'm blue in the face that they're actually extraordinarily similar people, at their cores.) Is it because Newt got expelled, or because Theseus scooped up Leta, or because Theseus expresses emotion through touch & Newt jerks away from touch he doesn't initiate himself, or because because because because because? I don't know. But there is something there and, based on the "complicated relationship" comment, it sounds like it is something that likely developed over time. So imho - I think some people see that and just lean in way too hard. Like, pedal to the medal, 0 to 60 too hard.

Theseus is Snarky to Newt on Multiple Occasions - Mostly based around how Newt directs his life, carries himself, etc etc. For example, it would be easy to take that whole scene before and after Newt's travel hearing in CoG and assume Theseus is an overprotective, condescending, and ableist prick. But if we look below the surface (and the stage directions in the screenplay help, too. When he says "maybe a little less... / like me. / well, it can't hurt" the instructions say 'not without fondness', or something like that), it's pretty glaringly obvious he doesn't mean to be that way. Even condescending behaviors usually have causal correlates, even if we can't see them on the surface. (Believe me -- and this is something we both touched on in DMs, salamander, I'm just repeating for the sake of the ask -- well-meaning pep talks and encouragement can still drip with condescension when loved ones think you need guidance because they "love you and know better " and you're just too autistic or too idealistic or too naive or whatever.) Ultimately, whether due to a failure to approach these snarky exchanges with grace and nuance, or because it can make a good fic to put brothers at odds, IDK -- but I expect this particular point plays into some people's decisions to interpret Theseus in a way I view as OOC.

Ease of Narrative ~ Nuance is hard - I mean, this one explains itself. Writing characters in a nuanced manner that allows digging into the messy horrible confusion of relationships--embedded as they are within families and societies and personal & general history--is not easy. It takes not only patience and significant effort as a writer, but it also takes a degree of self-awareness and maturity that we all reach at different points. I'm not there yet myself (there's no real arrival -- life's not a perfect graph), but still: My fic writing is very different now at 32 (with 14 years of 'adulthood' and 12 years of therapy under my belt) than it was when I was writing about adults when I was 15. (And, yes, I still have my first posted HP fic up on MuggleNet and FFnet, so you don't just have to take my word for it lmao.) To be very clear, this isn't me being ageist or whatever: I'm just saying that I often get the sense while reading fic where Theseus is reallllly overly aggressive that the writer is sometimes either very new to creative writing (and good for them! we love new writers! keep writing, lovelies!), or else quite young, and thus still acquiring life experience that is going to improve their work as they age, every single day.**

Sibling Experience - Not having personal or narrative experience with an age gap like Newt and Theseus have. I'm an older sibling by 7.5 years, which is close to Theseus & Newt's age difference. I basically half-raised my younger brother, so I have a real soft spot for that kind of sibling relationship, which comes across in most of my fics (LotR & FB). It's hard to imagine the sort of borderline sibling-parental love, responsibility, and anxiety that can permeate those kind of relationships if you haven't experienced or seen it represented in media yourself. This is just a theory, of course---I have no actual data on this being actually related to his OOCness.

What else? What do you or others think?

Final very random thought

I also think a lot of people forget that autism runs in families. So yes, Theseus doesn't always "get" Newt (god, no, lol) and he doesn't have guidance on what to do when he doesn't, but it is highly unlikely he hasn't seen behavior similar to Newt's before, whether in a parent or cousins, an aunt/uncle or something else. People *also* tend to forget, IMHO, that subclinical traits are often present in direct family members of an autistic person--Theseus' rigid thinking, for example, isn't necessarily "autistic", but he may get Newt better than people think for certain reasons we never have an opportunity to see in the script. (Not that the movies are paying *that* much attention to the actual research or autism presentations lmao, but I'm just saying it is a possibility). Being able to relate to a smaller version of someone's struggles can simultaneously make one both a better support and a worse one in a lot of ways. (And certain autistic traits can even rub up against each other poorly in different people--I have a few acquaintances that rub me the wrong way because our "symptoms" manifest in very different ways and their natural behavior triggers some of my own sensory issues or overdeveloped sense of justice or whatever. Conversely, my ADHD tendency to be 20 minutes late to every hang gives one of my autistic friends a panic attack every time -- I feel terrible, but all we can both do is try to adjust the behavior around our symptoms. And sometimes the same traits--firmly held beliefs, for example--bump into each other explosively, which I have experienced in fandom myself: two autistic people w diametrically opposing views interacting, but because we process information in similar ways even with very different perspectives, no progress can be made before someone shuts down.) BUT I BRING THIS UP BECAUSE, I do think it's possible to headcanon that some of Newt and Theseus' conflict (which does exist) could even be rooted in differing forms of neurodivergence or presentation of subclinical symptoms.

The world is a big place and there's so many possibilities. These are just some of my thoughts on why Theseus is often portrayed in a way I find to be OOC!

Asterisked footnote under cut -

**I'm trying to convey what Sandra Cisneros does much better in her short story "Eleven." That we, all of us, carry our entire lives and what we have seen inside of us at all times, and I think that's what we bring to our writing.

What they don’t understand about birthdays and what they never tell you is that when you’re eleven, you’re also ten, and nine, and eight, and seven, and six, and five, and four, and three, and two, and one. And when you wake up on your eleventh birthday you expect to feel eleven, but you don’t. You open your eyes and everything’s just like yesterday, only it’s today. And you don’t feel eleven at all. You feel like you’re still ten. And you are—underneath the year that makes you eleven. Like some days you might say something stupid, and that’s the part of you that’s still ten. Or maybe some days you might need to sit on your mama’s lap because you’re scared, and that’s the part of you that’s five. And maybe one day when you’re all grown up maybe you will need to cry like if you’re three, and that’s okay. That’s what I tell Mama when she’s sad and needs to cry. Maybe she’s feeling three. Because the way you grow old is kind of like an onion or like the rings inside a tree trunk or like my little wooden dolls that fit one inside the other, each year inside the next one. That’s how being eleven years old is.

#answered asks #salamanderscamander #apologies in advance for any typos #anyone can reblog but i ask that you do so with good intentions and respectfully communicate #:)#boundary: i am not open to having discussions about my continued participation in the fantastic beasts fandom - thank you #fantastic beasts #newt scamander #theseus scamander #autistic newt scamander #big brother theseus scamander #scamander brothers #fb fandom #fantastic beasts fanfic #fantastic beasts headcanons #fantastic beasts meta #long post #also i'm sorry for using so much medical model terminology -- i'm in a human dev phd program and my vocabulary is a horrific mezcla of #self-advocacy language & research language - its not ideal i know

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random-iz-stuff · 1 year

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Woah woah, r-iz-f! Ur blowing my mind over head. Zim being manipulative has never crossed my mind before and now I'm seriously rethinking everything i know about Zim, cuz my respect for him just quadrupled! Is he always acting dumb with humans and the Tallest, and is he still erratic and hot tempered at times? Cuz I'm having trouble finding the differences between when he is being real or being manipulative. I'm so impressed by this blog I bow to ur superiority 🙇‍♀️

Zim is naturally impulsive and has little to no common sense on his own, but he’s smart enough to know how to weaponize his own personality. He’s basically got a 20 in intelligence and like a 3 in wisdom. Intelligent enough to figure out how to undo a time slowed explosion, but not enough common sense to consider the fact that he’s still in the blast radius of said explosion.

When Zim is manipulating someone, he turns his personality up to 11, acting impulsive and dumb to a much more comedic degree. To the point where no one can take him seriously. He doesn’t put on a completely different act, he makes his usual personality a lot more intense. Which makes it hard to tell when he’s put up and dropped the act at times, both in-universe and out.

Generally, if Zim seems to take a sudden nose dive in intelligence out of nowhere, gains something or attempts to gain something through this, and then acts a lot smarter/more competent afterwards, he’s putting on a deliberate act.

When speaking to the Tallest or most humans, Zim doesn’t bother with this. I don’t think Zim ever really tries to manipulate the Tallest in this way (which makes sense considering who the Tallest are relative to Zim and Zim’s own respect towards them). He bargains with them more than a few times, but I can’t think of any moment where he deliberately attempts to manipulate them.

For humans, Zim just doesn’t need to. Humans are already easy enough to fool without manipulation tactics. There are some exceptions, but most of the time Zim doesn’t seem to bother with it. It just isn’t needed when dealing with (most) humans.

That being said, here’s a bunch of moments where I think Zim is purposely manipulating things. It’s not all the moments, but it’s a good amount that shows exactly how Zim tends to do this sort of thing.

1. The First Real Encounter With Tak:

Like I’ve mentioned before, Zim purposely acts stupid to make Tak believe that he’s not a threat and leave without harming him, purposely interrupting Tak and not understanding to a word she says (even though he very clearly IS listening judging by how he questions Tak about her plan, almost dropping the act when doing so).

2. Hobo 13:

During the final battle in Hobo 13, Zim gets grabbed by Sergeant Hobo 678, who attempts to push him out of the ring. Zim then suddenly interrupts the Sergeant with the line: “Perhaps you’ve trained me too well”, confusing and distracting Sergeant Hobo 678 for the few extra seconds needed for Zim to drain his power. That was on purpose. Zim played up the incompetent act for a few seconds to confuse and distract the Sergeant, which did its job and bought Zim enough time.

3. The Pilot Episode:

(Pilot) Zim manipulates (Pilot) Dib in an almost identical manner as with Sergeant Hobo 678. During the fight against Dib, Zim suddenly asks Dib “Wait a minute. What planet is this?”, to which a very confused Dib replies “Earth”, and Zim responds with “Yep, it’s the right planet” before swiftly jumping right behind Dib and shooting him in the back.

Zim pulled out the incompetent act mid-fight, completely threw Dib off his rhythm by doing so, and then immediately dropped the act and got a free shot on Dib when he was distracted and confused.

I get that the Pilot isn’t exactly canon, but it does show that this little, overlooked part of Zim has been a part of him for a VERY long time.

4. Rise Of The Zitboy:

I’m not sure if this scene counts as Zim manipulating someone like the other examples, but it shows that he knows how to subtly get people to do what he wants and understands how people work.

When trying to hypnotize Dib (who’s trying to keep his eyes closed to prevent being hypnotized by Pustulio), Zim says “Oh you’ll open them. You’ll have to breathe sometime” (referring to Dib’s eyes), at which point Dib opens his eyes out of pure confusion over what eyes have to do with breathing, getting hypnotized because of this.

Apart from being a pretty good line, it doesn’t make much sense for Zim to say this, even with his lack of knowledge on humans. Zim is an ex-scientist and is heavily implied to have been either a biologist or geneticist, so him believing that human eyes are used for breathing just doesn’t seem right.

Unless he’s deliberately saying this because he knows it’ll get a confused reaction from Dib and hopefully get him to open his eyes.

5. The Second Planet jacker Fight:

In the second Planet Jacker fight, Zim dons armour and lets himself be beaten up to provide a distraction for Gir cutting open the planet dome. During all of this, Zim acts as obnoxious as possible to keep the focus on his, playing up his egotism and acting like he’s the real winner of the fight the entire time.

We know that this is an act because up until that point, Zim had been acting relatively tame, not even close to as egotistical or incompetent as he was in the final fight. Zim’s line of “Sure. Why not” right before the fight might also be more proof that he’s getting beat up on purpose, with that line being Zim acknowledging that his plan involves him being beat to a pulp and accepting it right before fully committing to the plan.

6. Most interactions with Gaz:

If you watch the earlier episodes of the show, Zim doesn’t actually fear Gaz. He never has. He ignores every threat she makes and considering Zim’s canonical strength, has every right to. He goes easy on Dib for a reason.

Basically every moment in the series where Zim “fears” Gaz or shows any real respect to her is an act, meant to make sure that Gaz never actually knows about Zim’s real level of competence. Gaz believes that Zim is an incompetent moron that will never take over Earth because he constantly defeats himself, and while some of that is true, a lot of that is very clearly false. Gaz just constantly believes that Zim is incompetent because Zim keeps manipulating her into thinking that he’s incompetent, faking fear of her to keep that act up.

As for why Zim does this, just look at Enter The Florpus. When Gaz sees just how competent Zim actually is, she teams up with Dib. Even if Gaz doesn’t pose a physical threat to him, that’s still a second person going against his mission. Like Dib, Gaz poses basically no threat to Zim’s well-being, but does pose a threat to his mission.

7. Most times where Zim interrupts people with repeated “No”s and “Who are you”s:

I don’t have a list of how many times this happens or in what episodes, but whenever Zim constantly interrupts people by yelling“No!”, “Who are you?!” and other similar phrases, he’s doing it on purpose, either to make himself seem crazy or for other, similar reasons.

The sole exceptions to this is Zim yelling “What!?” In Mortos Der Soulstealer and Enter The Florpus. He genuinely couldn’t hear Dib in those moments.

#invader zim #zim #asks #analysis #headcanons #there’s definitely more moments in the series #but these are the best examples I can think of

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asgardian--angels · 1 year

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Hi, I’m also a NH resident - what can you tell me about the native bees that are here?

I know it’s a pretty general question, but I’ll take all the info dumping you’re willing to do

Thanks!

Readers, this is a long post, so feel free to press J and skip it if it's not for you. But if you live in the northeast it may be of interest!

Hiya fellow New Hampshirite! I could talk oodles about our native bees, especially since I did field research on them in undergrad and continue to work with native bees in the northeast, first for my MS and now in my job (upstate New York currently). The things I say here are broadly applicable to all of New England, as 1) this region is relatively homogenous in its bee fauna (melittofauna) given that it's temperate and has similar habitats (particularly in its high cover of hardwood forests and few grasslands), and 2) New Hampshire is poorly studied in terms of its bee diversity relative to other New England states, which I'll get to.

A bit of bee background

As you may or may not know, wild bees are nothing like honeybees. The vast majority of bees are solitary, not social, so they live singly in nests - either underground tunnels, or excavations in stems or wood, occasionally human structures - and in our area are generally univoltine, meaning they have one generation per year (this changes as you move further south in the US, sometimes even the same species switches to multivoltinism given a longer growing season). Solitary bees include everything from mining bees (Andrena), leafcutter bees (Megachile), mason bees (Osmia), cellophane bees (Colletes), longhorned bees (Melissodes), masked bees (Hylaeus), and many others. Our social bees - which comprises a wide spectrum from weakly social to primitively eusocial behavior (honeybees are 'advanced' eusocial) - include groups like carpenter bees (Xylocopa virginica, Ceratina), bumble bees (Bombus), and many metallic sweat bees (e.g., Lasioglossum). Many others are kleptoparasites, or brood parasites - a higher diversity than social bees actually. These do not collect pollen or build nests, rather they target a specific host bee species and lay their eggs in the host nest, where their larva eats all the pollen provisions meant for the host. These 'cuckoo bees' as they're called include nomad bees (Nomada), cuckoo sweat bees (Sphecodes, sometimes called blood bees though this is a misnomer as there are actual blood-feeding bees in the tropics), cuckoo leafcutter bees (Coelioxys), longhorn cuckoo bees (Triepeolus, Epeolus), and several others that are much less common.

Eight-toothed cuckoo leafcutter bee, Coelioxys octodentatus. It targets the nests of several species of leafcutter bee.

Bees collect pollen for their offspring. Most are generalists, visiting and collecting pollen from many families of flowering plants. But in our area, around 15% (this number is much higher in the southwest and other ephemeral/highly diverse habitats) of our bees are diet specialists, also known as oligolectic. They evolved to feed their young pollen from a specific group of plants, anything from one family (e.g., Asteraceae) to, commonly, one or a few related genera (e.g., Solidago) or rarely even one species (e.g., Macropis nuda on Lysimachia ciliata). In our area, these 'monoleges' are typically so because there's only one suitable representative of that plant group present in New England, but they may use more hosts further south (though, not always! We still have much to learn about the true specificity for these species, it's difficult to really know how specialized they are). True monoleges are more frequent in arid regions where there is a high proportion of endemic plants, and with it, endemic bees. Specialist bees often have adaptations to make them more efficient at collecting pollen from their hosts, and they tend to be more rare than generalists because they are only found with their host, which may have a patchy distribution, and are only out for a short period of time - as little as two weeks, when their host is flowering. A full list of known specialist bees in the eastern US and their hosts can be found here. Fowler (2016) is the peer-reviewed journal article version of this that is specifically for the northeast.

Bees in New Hampshire

New Hampshire probably has somewhere between 300-400 species of bees, based on estimates from surrounding states, the region as a whole (which is around 450), and museum records. I curate an ongoing project on iNaturalist to list all known bee species in the state, which you can see here. That has around 300 species (only 78 have actually been observed in NH on iNat), which is a hefty handful more than the few contemporary published surveys have found - entirely done by the Rehan Lab (now at York University), where I studied and worked for two years. Those surveys were centered in the southeastern portion of the state (Strafford Co, at and around UNH), the White Mountains, and in the Ossipee Pine Barrens. I helped with all of these surveys! They produced several new state records. The vast majority of historical bee collections by past naturalists were focused in the Durham area as well, making our idea of bees in the state very skewed and leaving vast swaths of the state, and many habitats, unexplored. This matters, because our state may seem a monolith of forest but it isn't!

Bee communities differ by geography, habitat, soils, and specific local plant composition. While New Hampshire doesn't quite have the diversity in ecoregions or plant species that some other states have (the southwest has around 800-1200 bee species per state), things do differ, and what we do have is special in its own right.

Geography: We sit at a boundary of north and south in terms of insect species, with northern New England representing the (current) northernmost range for some 'southern' species, and the southernmost range for 'northern' species in North America. In southern NH, you will likely find the same sort of bees that you'd find in Massachusetts, most of those also being found in New Jersey or even North Carolina, or as far west as the central states. That's how you end up with bees like Agapostemon texanus in New Hampshire! But in the north country, the composition of bees starts to change, with many more traditionally Canadian species becoming common. This is well-observed in bumble bees - around and north of the White Mountains, you really start to see more of the tricolored bumble bee (Bombus ternarius) and northern amber bumble bee (Bombus borealis, aptly named). The majority of our remaining population of the yellow-banded bumble bee (Bombus terricola), a regionally declining species, is in the White Mountains.

Yellow-banded bumble bee, Bombus terricola. One of several bumble bees in North America to decline severely in the last 30 years due to pathogens spread from commercially reared bumble bees along with habitat loss, pesticides, and climate change.

Habitat & Soils: While many bees are habitat generalists, many others are associated with specific habitats due to pollen preferences or nesting substrate preferences. We have plenty of forest bees, which may have been the predominant bees prior to historic land clearing - a good proportion of our specialists only visit spring-blooming flowers on the forest floor, like Andrena erigeniae (spring beauty miner) on Claytonia (spring beauty), or Andrena distans (cranesbill miner) on Geranium maculatum (wild geranium). Others like woody forest plants common to our area, like the rare Andrena kalmiae which visits sheep laurel (Kalmia angustifolia). Many bees even visit wind-pollinated trees and spend time in the forest canopy! Several species of bumble bees also rely on forest or forest edge habitat for nesting, and forest wildflowers are important resources for newly emerged queens. We also have a handful of solitary bees that nest in logs, thus depending on forest, like Augochlora pura and Lasioglossum coeruleum.

Other bees are specialized, or at least prefer, habitats like wetlands (which we still have many of, because our rate of historic wetland destruction is one of the lowest in the country), fields (which we never had many of, and these species are likely more common now, though they probably peaked in the farming era pre 1850s), alpine/montane habitat (found in either the Whites and/or the Mt. Monadnock area), coastal dunes (which we've mostly destroyed), heath (which New England has lost a lot of), and others. Most of these species are poorly documented in New Hampshire, because - in all places - bee surveys skew towards open habitat like meadows. There's likely a lot of hidden diversity locked away in these habitats, including many of the region's rare bees. A 2014 study (Wagner et al.) of power line rights-of-way found not only nearly half of the region's bee fauna along this one multi-state stretch of transmission line, but in NH, documented what is often considered North America's rarest bee - Epeoloides pilosulus. Not too shabby for humble New Hampshire! Power line ROWs are some of NH's only maintained early successional, and particularly native shrubland, habitat, making it immensely important for our bees as well as many wildlife.

Above: Dufourea novaeangliae, a pickerelweed specialist bee only found in freshwater emergent marshes. Very poorly documented in New Hampshire but easily recognizable and probably all over the place.

Soil also affects what bees live where. Much of northern New England has a highly sandy soil type, which differs vastly from nearby New York and even Vermont (thanks, granite!). Because of this, our plant communities are noticeably different from these states - plants that thrive here are those that do well in harsh conditions, i.e. our poor, sandy, acidic soils. This means oaks and pines, winterberry holly, and a lot of ericaceous plants, aka blueberries, laurels, rhododendrons, partridgeberry, huckleberry, maleberry, leatherleaf, and many others. The understory composition of those forest floor plants is also quite different as well, favoring things like starflower, goldthread, wintergreen, and fringed polygala rather than the squirrel corn, hepatica, and foamflower that need richer, moister soils. Thus, we may not have all of the specialists that need those rich forest flowers, but we have many specialists on those ericaceous plants - and there's a LOT - that are rare in those other states. You probably know just how common lowbush blueberry is in New Hampshire. There's nearly a dozen specialists on blueberry. Sand in general also produces unique bee communities, as many bees (and wasps) are specialized to nest only in sand, thus those are likely more prevalent here than elsewhere.

Colletes validus, the blueberry cellophane bee. Nearly absent in New York but likely quite widespread in NH - there's a nice nesting aggregation near my house where I took this photo. As the name implies, they primarily collect pollen from blueberry.

Lasioglossum vierecki, a sandplain specialist. Highly abundant in this specific habitat, but entirely absent anywhere else.

Documenting New Hampshire's Bees

Sadly, New Hampshire is lagging far behind other northeastern states in documenting our bee fauna. As I mentioned, our existing surveys have only covered a small portion of the state and there have been no statewide standardized survey efforts. New York and Vermont have recently completed gigantic, statewide atlases of their bee diversity (linked), and Massachusetts has so much going on I couldn't possibly link it all here, including many grassroots initiatives by towns to go pollinator-friendly, from large-scale habitat restoration to pesticide-free pledges (I recommend signing up for the Mass Pollinator Network newsletter). I do work on Martha's Vineyard, where they're conducting the Martha's Vineyard Atlas of Life, including bee surveys (a great paper by Goldstein and Ascher 2016 details a comprehensive bee survey of the Vineyard, showing all the cool rare bees they have! Such is the way with islands). Not to mention the hub of bee research for this region is in Ontario, at York University. That place has been surveyed to death in comparison to us.

Thanks to the efforts in these neighboring places, we have a pretty good idea of what bees should occur here. But much work needs to be done to actually find them and update decades-old records of species that haven't been formally documented in a very long time. Getting a handle on our bees is very important, across the country and the world, because long-term monitoring is the only way we can track declines. There are a handful of bees that may be extirpated from New Hampshire due to changes in land use, diseases, and pesticides. A big example is the rusty-patched bumblebee (Bombus affinis), which used to occur in NH, but was last seen in the early 90s and is presumed extirpated. Another is that yellow-banded bumblebee, which used to be found throughout the state, but due likely to climate change among other factors, it has receded into the mountains where it is colder and it has less competition from other bumble bee species. It may disappear from the state entirely within the century (this altitudinal range shift has been found in many bumble bees across the world due to climate change). Other bees are becoming more common, like the common eastern bumble bee, while others still are moving north into NH, or have been introduced from Eurasia (like wool-carder bees or rapidly spreading giant resin bee, Megachile sculpturalis).

Giant resin bee, Megachile sculpturalis, introduced to eastern North America in the 1990s. It can outcompete and displace native wood-boring bees like carpenter bees.

So what work is being done in New Hampshire currently to document and protect our bees?

UNH used to be the hub of bee research in the state, due to the Rehan Bee Lab, but even though that lab has moved to Canada, a lot of work still goes on through the Cooperative Extension, including on their research farms where optimal pollinator habitat restoration techniques are being studied. There is some information on their website, such as resources for planting meadows and native plants for NH gardens, though admittedly not all of it is easy to find, and much of the research that's been done in the past few years doesn't appear to be on there at all (unless it's somewhere I'm not seeing).

Lately, much of the attention for pollinator conservation in NH has been directed at our local NH Audubon chapters. In particular, the McLane Audubon Center (Concord) has been undertaking a massive effort to install a native pollinator meadow from seed in the past couple of years, experimenting with different site prep methods. They have been hosting an extensive webinar series which are all available to watch for free, many of which are about our native pollinators.

Apart from this, it's mainly been up to individual nature centers and preserves to create resources and install pollinator habitat, which many have done! But we lack a centralized effort at the state level. There are unfortunately still very few native plant nurseries in NH, and there is no organizational effort to help the public find them. I've been trying over the years to compile a list but many of them are wholesale only. A few dedicated retail nurseries are Bagley Pond Perennials in Warner, Foundwell Farm in Pembroke, and NH Native Perennials in Madison. Wholesale nurseries (meaning you can request them at your regular garden center) are Van Berkum Nursery and American Native Beauties. Otherwise, local nurseries may sell a varying selection of native plants if you hunt for them. You're likely better off finding nurseries in Massachusetts if you live in the southern half of the state - there's many more, or ordering seeds and plants online from the Wild Seed Project, based in Maine, Prairie Moon Nursery, or Ernst Seed. See more at the end of the post.

So how else can we work on documenting our native bees? Until we do a statewide atlas, it comes down largely to citizen science observations. New Hampshire residents are strongly encouraged to record bee sightings to websites like iNaturalist, Bumble Bee Watch, Beecology, and BugGuide. I'm a reviewer on three out of four of these sites so if you post in New England I'll likely see it. While a lot of our native bees cannot be identified from photos, even good ones, plenty can, including some rare and specialized species, making it valuable to go out and look for them in likely habitat, or even just to document what's in your yard.

You can encourage more species of bees to your yard by planting native wildflowers, shrubs, and trees. Keystone species in our area include goldenrods, milkweeds, black cherry trees, willows (not weeping willow), red maple, blueberries, asters, brambles (e.g., black raspberries), shrubby dogwoods, Joe-Pye weeds, sumac trees, wild strawberry, serviceberry, and many others. To support butterflies and moths, and by extension birds, the best thing you can plant is an oak tree, as they support over 500 species of caterpillar in our region. It's also great to plant native grasses, like little bluestem, purple lovegrass, poverty oatgrass, and panic grass, that thrive on our poor soils, instead of large turfgrass lawns that do not do well in these conditions. New Hampshire lawns rarely look healthy! A native lawn of wild groundcovers, forest plants, moss, ferns, sedges, or the above grasses would do much better.

A wet meadow in south-central New Hampshire, featuring Joe-Pye weed, goldenrods, and asters.

Further Resources

In addition to the links throughout this post, there are many more resources to learn about pollinators and native plants in our region.

Online:

Grow Native Mass - a wealth of resources

Wild Seed Project - another wealth of resources

Vermont Wild Bee Survey - user-friendly guide of Vermont's bees

Cornell Danforth Lab; Creating a Garden for Specialist Bees - comprehensive guide for supporting our region's often rare and imperiled specialists

UMass Dartmouth Gegear Lab - resources on supporting locally imperiled bees

Xerces Society - ample resources on establishing pollinator habitat in their Resource Center and Publications Library

GoBotany - user-friendly key for identifying New England plants

Landscape Interactions - behind some of the region's largest and most comprehensive pollinator corridor planting plans, mostly in Massachusetts. Download their master plan documents for free and see how municipalities are implementing these designs.

Heather Holm's website - lots of plant lists and info sheets for native bees, wasps, and plants (some are outside the northeast)

Pollinator Pathway - a ton of broadly applicable information

Bees of New York - great profiles on many northeastern bees

Homegrown National Park - put your native yard on the map and learn more about plants to support the most species

Print:

Bringing Nature Home, by Doug Tallamy (and any of his other books)

Pollinators of Native Plants and Bees: An Identification and Native Plant Forage Guide, by Heather Holm (and any of her other books)

The Northeast Native Plant Primer, by the Native Plant Trust

Deer-Resistant Native Plants for the Northeast, by Ruth Clausen and Gregory Tepper

... plus many others that I cannot all name here. Check your local Audubon gift shop, Barnes and Noble, Toadstool Bookshop, or nature center to find these regionally specific books. One last great book is The Nature of New Hampshire, by Dan Sperduto and Ben Kimball, which covers every natural community in the state. A must-have for lovers of our good old granite state.

I hope this sated your curiosity! And I hope this can be of use to many of you who live in northern New England. As always, feel free to drop me a line anytime on here if you have questions or want to chat about our native pollinators. All photos in this post are my own. Now go out and find some bees!

#tauriel-of-moondoor #bees #pollinators #new england #new hampshire #native bees #wildflowers #i may or may not have spent five hours writing this #but it's worth saying #sorry for posting at 4am but that's when i finished writing it lol #i will reblog again tomorrow #your local pollinator ecologist speaks

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tribbetherium · 2 years

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The Early Temperocene: 145 million years post establishment

Just Like Cold Times: The Austral Tundra of South Ecatoria

The Temperocene is characterized by the warming of the global climate, a change brought about by multiple geological, atmospheric, orbital and oceanic factors that together cause the overall climate of HP-02017 to fluctuate in tremendous, variable cycles spanning tens of millions of years, some cycles cooler and some warmer, with the coldest cycle since the introduction of life being the age of the Glaciocene: a time when vast ice sheets stretched almost to the equator, blanketing much of the land in tundra and taiga.

Those years are long over now. The ice has receded with the warming of the clime, and new biomes in the temperate and tropical zones have returned in the great springtime of the Temperocene. But the ice has not completely gone away, with a few regions at the polar extremes still experiencing significant amounts of ice and snow at least part of the year. And on the continent of South Ecatoria, its northern half long since merged with Mesoterra and Arcuterra, a small fragment of the Glaciocene lingers on: the Austral Tundra, where a mix of flat plains, mountainous regions and coastal shore intermingle in sharing a cold climate that experiences mild summers and snowy winters even in a warmer age.

The shores, in particular, still freeze over in winter, forming floating ice floes, and the cold upwellings of the ocean currents are still very productive in this zone, causing cold-water reefs formed of quillnobs to spring up along its coasts and zooplankton to thrive in the shallows, in turn feeding shoals of shrish and pescopods and skwoids and other marine life, which in turn provides for higher rungs of the food chain. While cricetaceans sometimes migrate south to these regions during the winter to feed, the year-round residents of the beach are basal, semiaquatic bayvers-- less-specialized relatives of the cricetaceans-- that can be found settling ashore in large groups, finding safety in numbers as they are clumsy and slow on land.

Bignose urps (Austropinnipomys megalonasus) gather here each night in huge noisy hordes numbering in the hundreds of thousands and filling the air with their rumbling honks. Agile and athletic hunters of small aquatic prey, they rocket effortlessly through the waves as they dart into swarms of shrish to grab a mouthful. Their neighbors, the slower, more bulky pegtoothed gnawrus (Odobenomys barognathus), instead feed on hard-shelled, slower prey, such as bottom-dwelling shrabs, shelled notiluses, and even the quillnob reefs themselves, which they pulverize with their powerful crushing jaws and blunt, flat-topped teeth. In the autumn when such food sources are available in the greatest quantities, the gnawruses gorge themselves greedily to pack on fat for the cold winter months. At times, they feed so ravenously that they are severely glutted by the time they retire to shore, and in this state enough stress causes them to messily lose their meals on the shore, to spectacular and hideous results. Even then, on a good day, a gnawrus may regurgitate fragments of shell it has ingested, in which case either way, nature displays its resourcefulness in ways not always pretty.

These heaps of gnawrus vomit piles strewn about the shore attract flocks of black-crowned arctinycts (Arctynyctus polyphagus): sea ratbats that act as the beach's cleanup crew. These omnivores will eat anything, from shrish to carrion to drifting kelp if they can get it, and regurgitated matter, present on the beach in copious amounts, are a free meal they will not hesitate to take advantage of. Indeed, they consume these with such relish that once a gnawrus begins making the telltale spastic gags of nausea the arctinycts quickly begin circling in anticipation, and the moment the great beast finally spews the flock descends upon the steaming heap, fighting and squabbling over the undigested chunks of seafood served to them in a putrid buffet.

Other flyers of these coasts, however, live a less stomach-churning lifestyle, such as the ruby-throated wandergander (Ornithomurius erythrodeirus), which has evolved much longer legs than its surface-skimming kin. It forages for food on the shores at low tide, picking off small crustaceans and any beached sealife, and hunts in the shallow tide pools to pick off any trapped creatures stranded by the tide. Males sport brilliant red throat markings, which they use to attract females during courtship, and unlike most other pterodents the ruby-throated wandergander is a polygynous harem-maker, with harems of up to half a dozen females that he provides food to during the nesting season when the females are caring for newborn pups in their clifftop nests.

These cliffs and mountains where the wandergander builds its nests are also home to other creatures. Here in the slopes the ground blooms with abundant deciduous grasses that grow their rhizomes out in spring, spread seed in summer, and wilt in winter, and it is here in the highlands that an enterprising lemunky, the mountain chewooki (Arctopithecus baccha) travels in troops up in the peaks, foraging for the grasses and their nutritious roots most of the day. In some regions where the mountains have active volcanism that produces hot mountain springs, the clever lemunkies occasionally go for a soak during the coldest times of the year, an activity that displays a rung of social hierarchy among them where the warmest and coziest springs are reserved for the highest ranking members, while lower members must settle for less comfortable pools or even just have to contend with the cold.

The hills of the Austral Tundra, however, are also home to one of the most unusual and unexpected animals of all: the polar shieldthorn (Arctochelonimys hoplites). An armored shingle, the shieldthorn is the most southern-ranging of the ectothermic rattiles: an achievement it holds with its extreme lifestyle. Gorging on vegetation in the summer, it builds up enough fat to then hibernate in winter when it would be too cold to operate, while its metabolism, breathing and heart rate slows down to such an extent as to externally appear almost dead. Tucked safely in a dug-out burrow the shieldthorn can hibernate for as long as six months if well-fed, with thick armored plates formed of fused scales to deter intruding predators, and sharp, stabbing spikes on its fat-storing tail to draw attention away from its vital energy-rich organ.

Flatter ground is in turn home to herds of the white snowsow (Albiporcimys leucius), where large numbers of these cold-adapted bumbaas forage in the tundra for grasses tubers, and roots, which they dig up with their lower tusks. Their stocky bodies and short limbs help them retain heat, while their thick coats of fur help them keep warm in the cold winter months, as well as conceal them in the snow from predators: in the summer, this coat is instead exchanged for a thinner, gray one, with their winter coat sloughed off in clumps in the spring, to more quickly transition to their summer coat and reduce the time they stick out like a sore thumb, frosty white in a rocky landscape devoid of snow.

But perhaps the most intriguing of all the Austral Tundra's inhabitants is the region's apex predator: the southern baskerville (Calliducyon australus), a surviving descendant of the daggarats that ruled the Glaciocene as its top carnivores, but ultimately dwindled away at its end. Specifically, it is a member of the lycanines: a group of daggarats that forsook their long saber fang for a shorter slicing one, an adaptation that had allowed them to persist on smaller game while their bigger relatives, the slaybers, perished with the extinction of their giant prey the drundles and the hammoths. Today, the daggarats are survived by the lycanines of South Ecatoria, and the chernadogs of Arcuterra that had since regressed to mesopredator status with the resurgence of the carnohams.

But what sets apart the southern baskerville from most other species is its unusually high degree of social intelligence: an adaptation born of the necessity to survive in a fickle and treacherous world remnant of an age long past. Here it was the cunning that survived, the ones adaptable to whatever changes arose on a dime. And it was here that the southern baskerville was selected by circumstance for its mix of toughness, flexibility and intelligence, much like a certain species on Mesoterra ages long past, the maniacal ripperroo-- save for one key difference.

While the ripperroo was violent, competitive, and even cannibalistic, here the forces of evolution would drive this clever apex predator in a different direction: one more geared toward cooperation. Rather than competing with their own kind, they amicably shared their spoils: a behavior well rewarded in their environment by reciprocation of benefits: helping a pack-mate in a time of need was useful in soliciting help from them in turn. As such, intraspecies violence is very rare among the southern baskerville, and social altruism even quite common: old and injured packmates unable to hunt are still shared with, partly due to their experiences being useful in teaching younger individuals and thus still contributing to the group, but partly simply because family bonds are very tight, and members show a great deal of affection to one another. The cohesive nature of their packs make them very efficient hunters, of even large game, as each individual works for the good of the group, rather than simple mobbing for the sake of self-interest.

Southern baskervilles, as such, are easily one of the most complex of animals currently living on HP-02017. Their intimate social behaviors has geared them toward brains able to percieve and anticipate the actions of others, a feat necessary for their cooperation. They too are incredible problem-solvers, able to coordinate their efforts toward a common goal, and can relay information to other members of the pack with a series of simple whistling vocalizations: both in the sense of spreading urgent information of food, danger, or courtship to others or to pass on learned behaviors to their offspring based on their own experiences. Compared to other zingos, the brain of the southern baskerville remains fairly neotenic up to adulthood, allowing a greater degree of behavioral plasticity that allows them to learn new things even in maturity, and teach others how to follow their example. As such, various populations of the southern baskerville have adopted local behaviors, such as those in the plains able to herd snowsow herds into ambushes, or coastal populations picking on basking bayvers by blocking their escape routes to the sea. Certain riverside sub-species are even able to utilize foreign items such as driftwood or bones gripped in their teeth to dislodge small invertebrates from rocks or reach into small burrows for tunneled small prey: the beginning of early tool use, albeit one limited by their lack of prehensile digits.

Evolution, random and nondirectional as ever, nonetheless tends to repeat certain winning formulas in the endless game of life, where the reward is survival and the proliferation of a gene. And it is here, in a place seemingly where time has not progressed, that a tremendous leap would be achieved: the first hopeful embers of what could, in time, be the dawning of a new species: and the unexpected rise of another new intelligence.

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#speculative evolution #speculative biology #spec evo #speculative zoology #hamster's paradise

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lithiumdoll · 4 months

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The Last Dryas

With the completely unfounded optimism that the new year provokes in me, I'm back on my bullshit! NaNo Story? Re-written. Finished? Except for edits. Being inflicted on Ao3 readers? For their many, many sins.

Podunk, Wherever’s stadium had been looking for an excuse to collapse for a decade and, thanks to Lukas’ temper tantrum, it had finally been given one.

Three entire sections of the outer wall had fallen - two where Lukas had played battering ram, the third scorched black where Dash had been caught up in the eels and his thrashing had left big enough cracks that snow had settled in them.

The roadies had stripped the technics and broken down the sets as soon as the med techs cleared the arena, the only things left in the sullen light of dawn were frozen black mud ringed with corroded bleachers and rubble. Nothing to show where both men had almost bled out, let alone where a couple of teams had thrown a ball around twenty years ago.

Dunlap, almost spherical in protective layers, had trudged to the remains of its entrance and slapped on a dereliction notice. Made sense: no way the Colosseum - Fowler - would support a settlement that couldn’t make it worth their while. Circuit City wouldn’t stop there again, that meant no seed, no meds, no munitions - no chance.

The five hundred or so people living in the dilapidated shell of a library next door must have suspected they were walking dead months ago - probably as soon as their harvest failed. All Dunlap had done was nail the coffin shut.

The lucky ones might find some other stop to take them in, but most probably wouldn’t try. It wasn’t like the months after A-Day; the new normal didn’t reward compassion to strangers.

None of Podunk’s people had tried to argue, they’d filed silently back into the dubious shelter of the library and deadbolted the still relatively solid door.

Hidden on the library roof, Casen had heard the bar clunk home with only a faint scrape of rust on rot. It wouldn’t do much against a pack of fomori, or even a concerted effort by a changeling, but it would keep the worst of the freeze out. He guessed Podunk’s people knew that too.

The library roof was surprisingly intact too - high enough to tell if the City was about to be visited by bookies demanding his head, and hard enough to climb no one was likely to stumble over him accidentally.

His hearing wasn’t as good as some, but he caught snatches of conversation as the inhabitants moved from room to room. A short, sharp bark of a laugh. The high wail of an infant, who was settled quickly.

A single figure broke away from the frenetic activity of the breakdown and made their way towards the library a few minutes later. Solidly built, with dark hair under a knitted cap, and dressed in guard leathers: Aaron. He bent under the weight of the large kit bag on his back as he struggled across the snow.

He dropped the bag at the library door, hammered twice with this fist, and turned back the way he’d come. The delivery had to be from Betty - she was the only one who’d risk it and Aaron wouldn’t fight through calf-high snow in his guard leathers for anyone else.

The bolt slammed back and the door opened a crack, then wider as hands scrabbled at the kit bag and dragged it inside. Casen heard gasps and the catch of a sob as the door slammed again. After a few minutes, the unmistakable scent of heated ration packs made its way up to the roof.

Betty had always said everyone should get a last meal. They hadn’t talked in years, but Casen guessed nothing had changed.

Silence fell in the small hours of the morning; Casen turned his attention back to the City.

The two-hundred-and-fifty-strong road crew swarmed here and there as they broke it down. Nominally they were managed by Mayor Dunlap, in practice they operated like a hive consciousness. The majority were human and the few changelings in their ranks weren’t, as far as Casen knew, able to network minds. Do anything often enough and it became rote: the City might stay as little as two nights at a stop and never more than a week.

The frames for the sleeping pods and showers were already gone and the kitchen was almost down - that had probably provided the cover to allow Aaron to smuggle the supplies out. Next would be the burrow and then the armory.

The domiciles always came last, personal items in their crate for transport and the frames themselves folded into small, square cubes their owners could carry onto whatever car, bus, or truck they found a seat.

And there was Mayor Dunlap on the edge of the motor pool, bundled up in a snow coat and violently yellow scarf, literally directing traffic as the City fleet got underway. He didn’t need to do it - everyone knew their place and role - but he did it just the same.

The medical transport pulled away; Aaron had presumably made it back for escort duty. It carried the med techs, Dash, and whatever retaliation plan Dash was coming up with. He’d been conscious and swearing when the techs loaded him, at least: he’d be able to refuse regen.

One-armed, yes, but safe from detection.

Aodh and Dae-sung were probably still in the motor pool, throwing roshambo over who’d get to drive the beat-up SUV Sid usually kept aside for them. Pops meant perks, choosing their ride was only one of them, and Dae-sung - specifically Dae-sung’s tail - needed the space.

Normally, Casen would be with them. He had no popularity ratings to speak of - good - but Dae-sung always wanted an audience for his mixes before he took them live so that paid Casen’s way. He’d claim the back seat and listen to them bicker as he watched fields, scabland, old town, and sometimes - in the far distance - the new cities go by.

Normally, Casen hadn’t interfered in a fight and dismembered two of the Colosseum’s biggest names. They’d both live, but that wasn’t the point as far as the bookies were concerned. And if they didn’t put out a hit, Nico definitely would. They’d ignored each other cordially enough since he’d come back to the City, but she wouldn’t ignore an attack on Lukas, it was only a question of when and where she’d retaliate.

The chaos of the motor pool would be a good place to make a try; Aodh and Dae-sung didn’t need to be in the middle of that. And, if it came to it, Casen didn’t need witnesses. Allowing a few hours of distance between himself and the City would give Dunlap time to smooth things over, and he’d probably try - Dunlap wanted his people happy and executions were bad for morale.

Casen rubbed at the back of his neck; hours later and it was still throbbing, but still an improvement over the initial stab of agony when he’d sliced into Dash. He hadn’t meant to, he’d been intending to kill Lukas and that had fucked everything up.

Don’t lie. Don’t command. Don’t kill.

He’d remembered half a second too late and his implant had reminded him in the worst way possible: leaving Lukas alive and Dash on the wrong end of a blade, which had triggered the implant to fry his brain stem again.

Kai and his fucking white hat.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/52586209

#the last dryas #nanowrimo

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ficretus · 3 months

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Knightfall, literary references and subversions

In many of my theories I heavily focus on literary references characters are based on. Now, literary references are not be all end all of predictions. They can easily get subverted as we've seen many times before in the show. In this post I'll focus on Knightfall and its literary references, is it relatively straightforward or is it all just subversions.

LITERARY REFERENCES AND CANON CONFIRMED ROMANCES

First thing I wanna focus on is how much do literary references play a role in 2 so far canon confirmed pairings, Renora and Bumbleby. After all, if there is a precedent that they don't matter, then there is no point in predicting anything based on them. And here it's a mixed bag.

Renora has grand total of zero things to do with literary influence of their characters. But here is the thing, Ren and Nora in general have very little to do with their respective characters. Their literary references mostly end up being aesthetic flavor.

Look at Nora for example, on surface level she is indeed Thor: she is heavily reliant on physical strength, her primary weapon is hammer (that is named after Thor's son), her primary element is electricity. But other than that, pretty much nothing. You can go to any famous Thor story and you'll find nothing you can reference back to Nora. At most I thought she might parallel Thor's rivalry with giants (seriously, at the end of pretty much any story where some giant is stirring shit, Thor shows up overjoyed he gets to murder him) since she fought Hazel in Haven, but this is clearly just a coincidence overall. If it was an intentional reference, she'd be pitted against Elm during the Atlas arc which didn't happen.

It actually kind of annoys me how little Nora has to do with Norse mythology. Characters like Pyrrha (Baldr), Ozma (Odin) and Hound (Fenrir) seem to have more to do with Norse mythology than character who's primary influence it is.

My point here is that while yeah, Renora is an example of literary references not mattering, Ren and Nora in general don't abide by the rules of their respective references. Hard to say they have changed the game, because they don't even play it.

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Now onto Bumbleby. Here is something that confuses me about it: people tend to say this ship being canon is an example of literary references not mattering, when it's fairly straightforward Beauty and the Beast story. You don't have to complicate it, switch roles or whatever people do. On its own it reads like archetypical Beauty and the Beast story.

I mean, run Yang through some basic traits Beast has in most famous Beauty and the Beast versions:

Is Yang beast? Yes. While not Faunus, Yang's temper and dragon imagery make her beast like. Beast also tends to have some reptilian features in lot of versions which adds to the allusion.

Is Yang overprotective of rose flower? Yes. In this case not being literal rose flower, instead being her sister.

Does Yang get abandoned by Blake? Absolutely. Blake runs away to her family after Volume 3, directly paralleling Beauty leaving the Beast and returning home to her family.

Do they reunite in Beast's moment of need? Yes. Blake joining the main cast during the Battle of Haven, foiling Adam's plan. This is direct parallel to Beauty returning to Beast's side after having visions of his demise.

Is Yang prince? Not literal one, but symbolically yes. It works in two ways, she is daughter of Bandit Queen, making her princess. She is also daughter of Maiden (and as I say every other post, Maidens are symbolically royalty), once again princess. It also works well with Villeneuve version of Beauty and the Beast in which Beast gets abandoned by his mother as she goes to fight in the war (which works no matter which Yang's mother figure you take).

Bumbleby is straightforward Beauty and the Beast with references going back all the way to Volume 1, which is one of the reasons I disagree when people say Bumbleby was retconned into existence and Black Sun was suppose to be the thing originally.

As I said, mixed bag, Renora doesn't play by the rules of literary references, Bumbleby does. Literary references naturally matter more in case character's story is actually influenced by them.

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Side note about Bumbleby. I find it kind of funny common argument against it is that members of team RWBY are suppose to be like sisters, therefore pairing is inappropriate. Then you check Villeneuve version of Beauty and the Beast (which is origin of many common tropes in modern versions) and realize Beauty and the Beast there are first cousins. Sorry folks, it appears supposed incest is feature, not a bug.

IS JAUNE'S STORY JOAN OF ARC STORY?

After all, if Jaune is surface level reference to Joan like Nora is surface level reference to Thor, then literary references don't really matter. In this case, I'd say Jaune follows enough Joan of Arc story beats for me to say he is indeed influenced by her.

In first 3 volumes it is mostly surface level with some subversions to the Joan's story. Oh, he has no experience, yet he is given position of team leader, that's like Joan being given military command. Oh, he is crossdressing, that's so Joan. Oh, he is blackmailed by a guy that is on the nose reference to Joan's interrogator Cardinal of Winchester. If it continued going that way I'd probably chuck all Joan of Arc books out the window and returned to the normal life, but alas, that wasn't the case (please greenlight Volume 10 and immediately do Whiteknight so I can return to the normal life).

Following the Fall of Beacon, Jaune's story starts following Joan's story way more closer. Events that happen in following volumes start matching events happening in Joan's story chronologically. Fall of Beacon being both subversion of Joan's victory at Orleans and sack of Joan's village by Anglo-Burgundian forces. I made an entire theory about it and you can check it out below.

Long story short, Jaune's story follows Joan's close enough for me to conclude that it's valid way to read the character. If that's the case, then most logical love interest you can give to Jaune is character based on King Charles VII (Jaune is not straightforward rendition of Joan of Arc so him having a love interest is not out of question) since he was the most important person to Joan. And based on the title of this post you can guess who in my opinion fits that role the most. How that works, you can check in the theory below.

INDECISIVE KING:

RWBY's Indecisive King story is common argument of Knightfall theories. For those uninitiated, it's a story about Relic of Choice. There is a wise King that gives good advice to anyone that approaches him. One day, he is approached by Widow that lost her village and husband to Grimm and subsequently lost her will to live. He advises her to live and she listens to him, staying in his castle. King is given Relic of Choice that makes him see visions of unavoidable doomed future. He becomes Indecisive King, unable to give any advice to his subjects. After chasing away all of his advisors, he is approached by Widow who asks him about his issues. After being told about his visions, Widow puts on a Crown and sees a vision of her future with the King. She tells him to live and puts Relic of Choice away, they end up living happily ever after.

As how does this story relate to Knightfall? Well, Jaune matches the role of Widow, Cinder matches the role of King. Their Volume 5 encounter seems like a reference to the first meeting of King and Widow (dialogue even similar to some quotes from the written version of the story). Story also feels very similar to the meeting between Joan and King Charles VII (theory in link below). And even ignoring all that, story is based around Relic that is connected to Fall Maiden.

Ok, but why do I bring this up? It's simple, it's the story written by RWBY writers, not some centuries old fairy tale. What's the point of writing a story, have characters in the show play roles similar to the ones in the story if it's not gonna mean anything. I guess it adds to the world building. If Jaune ends up killing Cinder, nobody is gonna even flinch. Nobody is gonna go "oh, this subverts Indecisive King, what a twist" since subversion of the story is based on majority expected conclusion. If references to Indecisive King were more direct and story itself more known, I'd consider completely subverting it to be plausible. But as I see it, there is no point in subverting something if nobody knows what are you subverting.

ADAM AND CINDER:

Hold on, am I forgetting about the elephant in the room? Or more accurately, forgetting about edgelord bull in the room. Adam was introduced with lot of Beast references, and yet not only does he not end up with Blake, gets killed by her. And since Cinder and Adam are similar in some regards, and Cinder is nemesis to Jaune, she will meet similar fate and end up subverting her references. I feel like this doesn't work for several reasons.

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First of all, you need to have some expectations for them to be subverted. At the beginning of the story we didn't know much about Adam. What we did know was that he is morally questionable but seemingly fights for the good cause. He was framed as more of a sympathetic villain or anti hero. So when you have him as Beast reference, there is some expectation Blake might return to him and change him for the better. Of course, that didn't happen and it was soon revealed Adam is completely evil and he would have no redemption arc. For better or worse, expectations were subverted. You still have some fans to this day that think Adam was set up for a redemption arc but writers changed their mind and made him complete asshole.

With Cinder, it's the complete opposite. Character was introduced as a villain, seemingly with motivation of being evil for the sake of being evil. She only ever interacted with Jaune as his nemesis. Nobody except weirdos like me have expectations Cinder will even be redeemed, let alone end up with Jaune. Majority of community expects Jaune will avenge Pyrrha and in some way be the cause of Cinder's downfall. Repeating Adam's story with Cinder doesn't work with latter as it does with former. Ironically enough, playing Joan of Arc story mostly straight would be massive subversion of expectations.

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Second of all, consistency and timing of references. Yeah, Adam was initially reference to the Beast. He is Bull Faunus and Beast tends to appear similar to Minotaur. He has rose as an emblem, Beast is afflicted with rose curse. He was abandoned by Blake just like Beauty ran away from the Beast. That's pretty straightforward and easily recognizable for average viewer. However, references stop after he was revealed to be completely evil. His role shifted to more of Disney's Gaston or rose curse, being existential threat to Blake and Yang. So he played his role as the Beast until the big reveal and shifted to appropriate villain role. He also served as a red herring to Yang's Beast.

With Cinder, it once again goes opposite way. Her early role in the story evokes different expectations. Theory as old as time itself is that Cinder would be the one to kill Jaune since he is Joan of Arc and she is fire themed. That combined with her role in Fall of Beacon and her quest for power made her to appear as more of reference to Joan's enemy, Duke of Burgundy. However, as story goes on she becomes more of a reference to King Charles VII (her backstory in Volume 8 especially added lot to the King references). If they were pulling Adam again, why bother adding so many allusions to Joan's King after Cinder was revealed to be Jaune's nemesis. It's not really even a subversion because unlike Adam as Beast, Cinder as King is not as obvious as a reference. It's hard to appreciate subversion if you don't even know what's being subverted.

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And lastly, this one is subjective, but it's boring as shit. While Cinder does share lot of elements with Adam, at the end of the day they are different characters with different motivations. Adam's motivations were deeply connected to Blake. Him going after people close to her and becoming "ship hater" made sense. Turning Cinder into Whiteknight "ship hater" is massive disservice to the character and goes against her established goal. Why the hell would she care if Jaune is with Weiss when her primary goals are taking Maiden powers and killing Ruby.

It ends up being extremely repetitive story with villains getting reduced to just "ship haters". I mean, what is next? Is Salem gonna be Rosegarden "ship hater" and break Oscar's weapon? Which ship is Tyrian hating? Be it villain or redeemed, I doubt Cinder's fate will mirror Adam's (or at least I think it will be boring if they end up going there).

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This is mostly my reasoning why I read literary references to Knightfall relatively straightforward and why I don't think they are playing some 3D chess with subversions. If they are doing Knightfall they are doing it, if not, then it's likely gonna be more about people like me reading too much into random references and seeing patters that don't exist then about them doing some multi layered subversion. Either way, that's all for today, some Knightfall, some Bumbleby, lot of rambling

#jaune arc #rwby jaune arc #cinder fall #rwby cinder fall #knightfall #rwby knightfall

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