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thedistantstorm · 4 years

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Project Compass 15

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This time: Vah’nya and Ezra meditate. Ivant and Ar’alani discuss what it means to be a warrior.

Next time: A moment of balance between Thrawn and Eli.

“He has been in his quarters for... days. That cannot be healthy,” The Admiral said after Thrass notified them that Ivant would not be joining them for the first meal of the day. Under her breath, she added, “Human or otherwise.”

Thrass rolled his eyes. “You do know he’s an adult, right? He can take care of himself.” Then, he added sarcastically, "It isn't as though he takes much - or any - time off. I wonder which one of you he learned that from…” Feigning an innocent glance between Ar’alani and Thrawn, he mused, “Or perhaps he just loves his work that much."

Further down the table, Ezra eyed the pale pink beverage Thrass was drinking, wondering if it too contained some kind of alcohol. He didn’t doubt it, first meal or not. Belatedly, he snuck a glance at Vah'nya, displeased that she had dragged him here for the proceedings. He suspected it would have been a far quieter and more comfortable meal out on the terrace with the rest of the Navigators.

“I’ve instructed my staff to bring him meals,” Thrass relented, fixing the Admiral with a helpless look. Ezra wondered briefly if he missed something the Admiral said, but that didn't seem to be the case. She was just fixing Thrawn's brother with her deadpan gaze as he said, “You know how he is when he’s onto something.”

"He knows his limits," Thrawn interjected mildly, drawing everyone's eyes but Vah'nya's. The eldest Navigator of the Chiss sipped a sweet smelling dark tea, listening politely but not engaging. She met Ezra's eyes and smiled behind her teacup. He had learned that she was not much of a morning person, which made her desire for them to be here even more confusing.

Thrass smirked, as if he knew something his brother did not. "You might find yourself surprised."

"You are a menace, Syndic," Ar'alani gestured to the Navigator and Jedi. "Tease him on your own time."

"Tease him about what?" Ezra asked innocently.

Vah'nya bit back a snort. She hid it well though, only earning the beginnings of a glare from her Admiral.

“Oh, nothing,” Thrass said, his attempt at innocence sounding more like gloating. “I would never tease about my friendship with Eli.”

"Your friendship is hardly anything other than acquaintance and mutual concern," Ar'alani reminded the Syndic. Her words were chosen carefully, Ezra could tell. To his right, Thrawn did not seem offended or flustered. In fact, since his discussion with Captain Ivant following Ezra's… incident, Ezra had noticed that Thrawn seemed a lot more balanced. Steady. Pensive and withdrawn, for sure, but not scattered and angry like he'd been before.

"Yes, yes, nevermind the countless months he spent here after his brush with death-"

Ar'alani shook her head. Ezra knew that look from previous experience with the Admiral. If Thrass wished to inspire Thrawn's attention, on his own head be it. "Yes, and you spent all that time at his bedside, did you?"

"Hardly. But I did check in on him."

"Why bring him here?" There it was, Ezra thought. Thrawn regarded Thrass coolly, but with that single-minded intensity. It was hard not to see Thrawn's luminous red eyes as anything but furious, but he'd had time to understand some of the nuance. There was suspicion there. Wariness, too. No doubt stepping into this conversation with Thrass was akin to wandering through a field full of landmines.

"Regardless of the several alternative reasons he no doubt gave you," Thrass said, "Eli’van’to did ultimately save your life. At least, that’s the part I cared about, anyway.” He shrugged. “And if you were willing to part with him despite his career at your back, I suspected you might prefer 'alive' to 'a warrior's death.'"

"What Syndic Mitth'ras'safis means," Vah'nya finally interjected, "Was that sending him to the military hospital on Csilla would have been asking for someone ill-meaning to assassinate him." She blinked up at Thrass, demurely awaiting his response. None came. She let her eyes wander over to Thrawn, seated to his left, next to the head of the table. "Under the syndic's protection was the best place for him to recover safely."

Thrawn frowned, but didn’t comment.

Vah'nya didn't flinch. "Of course," she looked at Ar'alani, "The fleet was stationed out this way and it was far easier to smuggle in human medics, too. Though they hardly did anything," She muttered, at the end.

"I do wonder why that is," Thrass tutted at Vah'nya, intent to invite her to share in some of Thrawn's ire. He knew how much his brother loved not being in the know.

"Enough squabbling," Ar'alani pressed. "Stop holding it over his head," She instructed the syndic, as if she were superior in rank. She wasn't, though it was all somewhat ambiguous as to how it lined up between military officers and political officials within the Ascendancy. It also didn't hurt that Thass knew she could rip him to literal and metaphorical pieces without difficulty. She considered Thrawn for a brief moment, almost protective, before moving on. "And you," She chided Vah'nya, "Really need to work on your gossiping."

"That was hardly gossip, Admiral. Gossiping would include me mentioning how you frequented his bedside to achieve the necessary solitude in order to catch up on your reading."

Ezra couldn't help it. He snorted, trying to hold back his laughter and failing. It was infectious though, and Vah'nya found herself joining in, much to the Admiral's disapproval.

“Enough,” Ar’alani sounded terribly annoyed, though it was hardly Vah’nya and the alien Jedi that bore the brunt of her irritation. Syndic Mitth’ras’safis was a thorn in her side. Still, if she could alleviate some areas of origin... “Leave us,” She ordered both Ezra and Vah’nya. “Enjoy your day. Do not bother me.”

“Do you have reading to do, Admiral?” Vah’nya quipped.

“Some. If you’d like,” She said, a slippery note to her voice, “I could arrange for you to assist me with the after action reports I need to review and approve.”

The Navigator was stone-faced and on her feet in seconds, the remaining food on her plate long forgotten. She hated those damn reports. “Come, Ezra’Bridger,” She said, already making for the door.

Ezra looked mournfully at his unfinished plate, but did as he was told. In the doorway to the grand dining room, Vah’nya took his wrist and dragged him not toward the terrace and the other Navigators, but towards the gardens. He could hear Thrass laughing behind them, the sound of the Chiss elite’s voice echoing down the extravagant corridors.

Vah’nya led them to a sunny place in the easternmost gardens on the estate, a greenhouse with giant, arching glass ceilings and sun-bleached glass ceilings and large white-stone flecked pillars. In the center was a beautiful, burbling fountain that spilled into a pond with strange, exotic fish that hung to the bottom peacefully.

Releasing his wrist, she spun around to face him, then gestured at two pillows laid upon the ground in the very center of the floor’s elaborate mosaic tiling. “What do you think?”

It looked… not quite natural, but Ezra took a deep breath and closed his eyes. It was far enough away from the rest of the manor, serene and calm. “I think it’s perfect.”

“Good.” The Chiss smiled.

Meditation wasn’t a key tenant of the Chiss Navigators’ training or practice. More often than not, they suffered from overstimulation that was only alleviated by sensory deprivation, allowing the body and mind to disconnect and then come back to each other naturally. Ezra likened it to a sort of hard reset, a power down and restart. He’d tried it when they’d initially tested him, a training exercise to see how he fared. Whatever they wanted from him, he likely hadn’t done it, but no one had ever said a word. Instead, they simply told him he didn’t have to attempt somnia again if he didn’t believe it was helpful, so he didn’t.

Vah’nya was interested in the way Ezra’s powers worked. Not impressed easily, like Thrass who found it interesting that Ezra could leap exceedingly high or levitate things - even people, if he wanted - in the air, manipulate things with his mind. Ezra had drawn the line at the classical ‘Jedi mind trick,’ though it was Thrawn who debunked the mystery: the Chiss were not a people who could be manipulated in this way.

He waited for Vah’nya to select which of the cushions she wished to sit on. She did so cross-legged, the backs of her hands resting open, palms up on her knees. Once she was settled, he kneeled atop the second, grateful not to bear his weight only on the marblesque tiling. Vah’nya took a deep breath in, held it, then exhaled.

“Is this all there is to it?”

“Sort of,” Ezra said. “Part of it is clearing your mind, but you’re not actually doing that. You’re supposed to be focused, but not. It’s kinda hard to explain. I usually try to feel my connection to everything around me and kind of let it guide me from there.” He rubbed the back of his head, sheepish. “My training was good, but it wasn’t… I’m not a real Jedi, like the ones from before the Empire,” Ezra admitted. “My master was trained until the Empire wiped out his master, but,” He sighed. “It wasn’t a traditional Jedi education. A lot of what I learned with Kanan, we learned together.”

“I see,” Vah’nya said. “He meant a lot to you.”

“He’s family,” Ezra answered. “I owe him everything.”

She nodded once, and they stayed silent a moment, their breathing syncing without much effort. Slowly, the Navigator asked, “Your feelings for him - for your family - do you believe it makes you strong?”

“The Jedi warned about attachment, Kanan told me. It was something he said he struggled with, and something that he thought hurt the Jedi more than it helped. But he taught me attachment and love are two different things. Attachment is selfish. It’s what you want. Real love isn’t selfish at all.”

Vah’nya considered that, shifting to get comfortable and closing her eyes. “Describe to me what your Force feels like, Ezra’Bridger.”

Eli Vanto was not a man who thought highly of himself. He was a man who, in terms of his life overall, had only recently started dictating his own destiny. Sometimes he still felt every bit of the bright-eyed cadet Thrawn had decided to uproot and reshape to his own devices. That was good, though. It was important to remember where one started from.

He looked at the data and exhaled. They needed definitive results that the data supported. Only time would tell. It was already out of his hands in a lot of ways, but he was confident he’d found compelling metrics. More than that, he believed in his Navigators.

A knock interrupted him from his thoughts. Without his approval, the door opened slowly, the hall backlighting behind his visitor so that all he could see was the outline of a woman’s silhouette and glowing red eyes.

“You have been concerning our hosts with your absence,” Admiral Ar’alani said. She would never admit to being openly worried about him herself and Vanto would never want her to. He’d seen that attention and concern pressed upon him once in his life, and that was more than enough. She was a good commanding officer. She was close to Thrawn’s level of mind-reading but without that same intensity, well rounded and seasoned in other ways that he was not. Her empathy, even towards those outside of her species, was impressive and rare for a Chiss.

Ivant beckoned her over, knowing she would feel better about his choice to devote himself to analysis once he brought her up to speed."I know what data we need to collect," He informed her.

"You do?" She stepped around the desk and stood behind him, looming just behind his right shoulder. "Show me."

"In Vah'nya, the data is spotty, since it wasn’t know beforehand what kind of data we’d be looking for." He pulled up and highlighted a line in a table, and on another holoscreen, a chart corresponding to that data appeared. "See where it jumps out of the steady decline? That's her neuro eval on Csilla, after our time in captivity."

"It hasn't dropped since," Ar'alani said. “And it has been two years.”

"I don't think it will," Ivant answered. "A medical professional could probably explain it better, but the short version is that a part of her brain has become more active." He pulled up comparisons of other Navigators. "These are ones who trial out of Project Compass."

"They dip significantly," Ar'alani commented. "And this correlates directly with their abilities?"

"Yes," Vanto confirmed. "These are Navigators in their mid teens, ages fourteen to seventeen. The numbers don't actually have to be high for them to possess and use Third Sight, but the downward trend is indicative of their abilities fading, until they eventually match those of a Sightless Chiss." He pulled up another. "These are the younger ones."

"They are rising." She motioned with a rolling wave. "And Sightless children?"

"Here are the comps."

"Sightless children are elevated more than an adult, but their numbers are not even half that of a Navigator. If what you are saying is correct, we could hypothetically test for Sight at a younger age, rather than waiting for it to manifest."

"Correct, Admiral." Ivant pulled up another screen and the chart switched to color code and match specific lines of summary data. "Now, we just need to prove these findings aren't a fluke."

"You've identified candidates?"

"Several."

"Un'hee," She presumed first, "And how many others?"

"Four." Anticipating her next question, he added, "The youngest is seven. The oldest is fifteen."

"The oldest in her decline?"

"Yes, but she's plateaued. Since being brought on board the Compass, it has not fallen-"

"Even if we can prolong it," She said. "That would be a miracle in itself." Then, she looked down at him, her cold, thin fingers squeezing his shoulder. It was a firm grip, almost painful, though she meant it as encouragement. "You have something else."

"It's a working theory," Ivant began, "Based on how Vah'nya's breakthrough manifested and the girls we've seen progress with."

She stepped back, and Ivant powered down his console, removing the data cards and locking them securely in a black box within the desk itself. "Speak your mind," She said, moving to the chaise.

"I can give you numbers to prove it, when it happens," Ivant said. "I - at least, I think I can show you what the connection is, so we can show the Admiralty it's real and not some fluke. But you or I can't make it happen."

"You believe it is individual?"

He nodded. "Maybe there's a future where that won't be the case," Ivant said, "Vah'nya is working to learn and hone skills she thinks will help. She thinks the Jedi can help her to understand, so I told her to pursue that lead."

"And what do you think the catalyst is? A brush with death? Overcoming fear?"

"No," He said. "I think it's actually a lot more simple than that."

Ar'alani inclined her head, leaning back against the plush backrest of the lounge while keeping her back entirely straight in the process. She looked regal like this, and she knew it. Also, it was far more comfortable than her command chair. "Simple how?"

"Thrawn always went on about the ways of the warrior-"

"Yes," She interrupted, "That is culturally... significant to our people.”

“Which is why I think it’s important. Vah’nya has given Un’hee old navigator texts. They spoke often and fondly of Warrior’s Fortune.”

“The account of one centuries-dead Chiss shouldn’t be enough-”

“It’s not just one. It’s listed in at least a thousand other memoirs left by different Navigators, then stops right around the time of an ancient war that I think had something to do with the Sith.”

Ar’alani frowned, the expression sharp with concern. “Explain yourself. You do not have access to their archives. It is only accessible by Navigators.”

“Vah’nya allowed me to compile data under her supervision.”

“That is a crime, Captain Eli’van’to,” She rebuked. “There are sacred articles that protect the Navigators’ texts and archives from access by those who lack the Sight, Chiss or otherwise.”

Eli took a breath and braced himself. There was no easy way to say this. “I think that the real crime is that the Chiss have been stamping out their own Navigators,” He replied, never looking away from her deep red eyes. “The articles that protect the Navigators’ works from being publically accessible went into effect after they found themselves on the losing end of an alliance. From what I could tell, the Aristocra nearly destroyed itself in the process in the midst of some political feud at about the same time. One of the end results of their squabbles was that the Navigators were forced into more combat-forward positions and likened to soldiers in training, not children.”

“I know my people’s history,” Ar’alani pressed. “To accuse our ancestors of such a thing is a very serious accusation to make. It will not be taken lightly, should it become known.”

“I know,” Ivant agreed, his shoulders rounding for only a second before he straightened again. “But I believe it’s the truth.” He regarded her for a careful moment. “Of all the Navigators you’ve ever seen, can you tell me you’ve seen another as emotionally open or expressive as Vah’nya?”

“I have not,” She answered. “She has always worn her heart on her sleeve, for better or worse. Even when society has dictated otherwise.”

“The warrior’s downfall is pride, Admiral.” He fixed her with a heavy gaze. “The Chiss are a proud people. Most are too proud to show emotion or admit fear because it’s considered weakness. And, seeing it that way, they’re-” He sighed, “For a lack of a better term, ma’am, they’re blinding the Navigators. They’re not making the connections they need to fully unlock their abilities. At least, not like they used to, millennia ago.”

“If you were to say this to the Aristocra, they would throw you out, no matter how many numbers or navigators you provided to them,” Ar’alani said. “You would be lucky to escape without being fired upon.”

Ivant smirked. “Then it sounds like I’m onto something.”

“Perhaps,” She allowed. “Do not utilize the archives without me next time,” She said. “It is not only current Navigators who may access the ancient texts and I would like to know what aspects of our past will help to secure our future.”

Message received, Ivant dipped his head in a respectful nod. “Understood, Admiral.”

Satisfied, she continued. “If what you say is true, Eli’van’to, we will face difficult odds,” Her expression was grim, but held the slightest undercurrent of hope. “The words of an outsider will not be well received, no matter how true they are.”

“I know. That’s why Vah’nya should be the one to present them, when the time comes. She is the one who started all of this.”

Tsking, Ar’alani said, “I hardly believe that. This started because she felt compelled to protect you.”

“This started,” Ivant said, “Because protecting others is a warrior’s duty. And the Chiss, above all else, are warriors at heart.”

Ar’alani smiled. “I do not believe it is only Chiss who possess the heart of a warrior.” Her gaze narrowed, but there was no malice in it, only cool understanding. “Not always.”

#thranto #eli vanto/thrawn #eli vanto #mitth'raw'nuruodo #mitth'ras'safis #ezra bridger #vah'nya #ar'alani #sw fanfiction #my writing #gratuitous overreaching re: chiss warrior culture #that's not how the force works #but this is sight so i'm going to do my thing #i did my research before i concocted this theory #feel free to ask if you want to know more #there is some science behind what i've made up

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auburnfamilynews · 4 years

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The SEC’s weirdest rivalry may be what we need.

As we look forward to this afternoon’s Halloween matchup between Auburn and LSU, let’s go back several months and look at a possibility.

March 13th, 2020. Friday, March 13th, 2020.

That was kind of the day when this all hit the fan. Aside from being designated “World Sleep Day”, the news on that particular Friday was vast.

We’d just canceled basketball. Like, it was done. We wouldn’t get to see Auburn defend a conference tournament title and make a return to the NCAA Tournament. No more NBA, either.

Here’s a snippet of the headlines then:

It’s pretty much all bad news, and it’s continued that way for several months. No lie, 2020, and October in particular, have been long and tough.

So, how do we give this thing a hard reset? Can we power cycle it? Does that work?

When you finally get to this point, what can you do but be a little aggressive?

View post on imgur.com

And how does it get more aggressive than trying to combat the miasma of 2020 than by taking a visit to the old backwoods voodoo shop that Auburn and LSU co-own and operate.

Here we are, trying to find solutions for this pandemic and trying year, and the answer was here all along. Just let Auburn and LSU play. We should’ve done this months ago. Spring scrimmage. Best of seven. Apply the magic liberally.

We would’ve wiped this thing out by mid-April.

When you consider the facts, there’s no other way to approach this. Auburn and LSU have played the most unimaginable series in conference history, and the rivalry doesn’t even really date as far back as some other matchups.

Of particular note:

1988 - Stupid idiot Earthquake Game. LSU scores in the closing seconds and the bourbon-induced guttural moans triggered a flimsy seismograph across campus to register. Auburn’s only loss in the regular season. With a win, they would’ve played Notre Dame for a national title.

1994 - Ha! Stupid idiot Curley Hallman!

LSU quarterback Jamie Howard throws three pick sixes among his five interceptions in the fourth quarter, and Auburn erases a 23-9 deficit to win 30-26 and keep the winning streak alive.

1995 - Stupid idiot Phantom Whistle game. Patrick Nix got sacked for a safety when he heard a whistle from the stands and stopped during the play. Auburn loses 12-6.

1996 - Stupid idiot Barn Burning game. Literally a barn, not like “BARN CHEATIN”. Smoke billowed up from behind the student section but play continued. Auburn got screwed out of a touchdown when a Robert Baker catch was called incomplete. We lose 19-15.

1999 - Cigar Game. Auburn wins in Baton Rouge for the most recent time. Oh why does this number have to start with a 1?? Gross. Tommy Tuberville brings his guys back out onto the field to smoke cigars and curses the Auburn fortunes in Death Valley for decades to come.

2001 - 9/11 Game. Auburn/LSU is set for September 15th, but pushed back because of 9/11. LSU gets stronger as the season goes along, and thwacks us in Baton Rouge. Damon Duval fights a band member.

2004 - Hurricane Game. In the afterglow of Hurricane Ivan, Auburn upends the defending national champions with Jason Campbell’s last minute touchdown to Courtney Taylor. Nick Saban, Will Muschamp, and Jimbo Fisher are all on the LSU sideline.

2005 - Poor John Vaughn. Vaughn misses five field goals, including a doink in overtime to tie it, and Kenny Irons’ 200-yard day is wasted as Auburn loses again in Death Valley.

2006 - The Totally Not Pass Interference Officials Finally Made a Good Call Game. LSU gets unlucky with a controversial no-call on a play late in Auburn territory when Zach Gilbert and Eric Brock get entangled with an LSU receiver. Auburn stops LSU short of the goal line on the final play of the game to win 7-3. Oh, and an LSU fan doused our eagle with a drink and got arrested.

2007 - Les Miles Rabbit’s Foot Game. Instead of going for the easy field goal and certain win, Les Miles elects to throw to the end zone in the closing seconds. The pass is completed, when a bobble may have killed the clock. LSU loses twice during the regular season and still backdoors into the national championship.

2010 - Cam Newton Heisman Game. If the Iron Bowl cemented the Heisman that year for our large adult son, this was the game that vaulted him to the top of the polls. He runs for 217 yards and two scores, with one the scintillating affair where he dodges nearly every member of the LSU defense. Auburn goes to #1 in the country after this win and takes the national title a couple months later.

2016 - The You’re Fired Game. Loser of this game was pretty much guaranteed to fire the coach. Auburn gets six Daniel Carlson field goals and LSU appears to score the game-winning touchdown on the final play of regulation, but a review shows that the offense wasn’t set and the clock had run out before the snap. Les Miles gets fired the next morning.

2017 - Gus Hotseat Part 1,000. Auburn builds a 20-0 lead in Baton Rouge but tightens up and lets it slip away in the second half, falling 27-23. Auburn wins out in the regular season and wins the SEC West. This game, however, falls into one of the 3-4 most inexcusable losses under Gus Malzahn along with 2014 Texas A&M, 2016 Georgia, and 2018 Tennessee (and now 2020 South Carolina).

2018 - Pass Interference Revenge for LSU. Auburn blows another double digit lead and Joe Burrow leads a game-winning drive that culminates in a walk-off field goal for LSU and a 22-21 final score.

2019 - Nobody comes close to LSU in the regular season except for Auburn in Baton Rouge. In the end, a penalty on LSU allows LSU to run out the clock and preserve the win on the way to a perfect season.

See, if we’d just had a few of these happen in March, the Butterfly Effect of mojo would be more than capable of wiping out COVID, bringing back Kobe, dousing the wildfires, and doling out another round of stimulus checks to the country.

Or, we could be in for something truly epic tomorrow. Let’s consider the facts again.

Gone are the ultra-talented offensive cogs from last season for LSU. Heisman winner Joe Burrow, along with his trusty skill position players, most of his offensive line, and his wunderkind passing game coordinator are all in new spots (the NFL). Steve Ensminger is in charge of the show once again. Dave Aranda is leading Baylor, while people are laughing at Bo Pelini’s Baton Rouge buyout considering how poor the LSU defense has been this year.

They lost to Mike Leach, who hasn’t won another game yet. Think about that. MIKE LEACH MADE LSU WALK THE PLANK AND THEN DID SO HIMSELF. Mutually assured destruction from the Pirate. They also lost to Missouri and first year coach Eli Drinkwitz. LSU looked great against South Carolina, but that was at home, at night, where you can never pick against the Bayou Bengals unless you’re Troy.

Meanwhile... you know how this season has gone for Auburn.

Earlier this year, our own James Jones wrote a nice little ditty examining the history of BARN CHEATIN’. That only reviewed our controversial wins against the Tide after we were accused of nothing more than playing “gotchya and grabass” by the full diaper havers across the state.

Interesting only if you’re a mouthbreathing nitwit. Equitable if you’re the ones on the field trying to play actual football instead of gotchya and grabass. https://t.co/sum1sEFeXM

— Roll ‘Bama Roll (@rollbamaroll) April 22, 2020

Now, however, they may not be alone. Arkansas has joined Club Barn Cheatin’ —

I’m gonna be bitter for so long. In WHAT WORLD is that not a fumble!? WE WON THAT GAME pic.twitter.com/eGxwcFYlD9

— WoOoO Pig SpoOoOoky (@ArkansasFight) October 11, 2020

Then Ole Miss joined the group with these shirts and the sympathy of Alabama beat writers. It’s an alliance!

You can now grab yours today! : https://t.co/r4qq8zrpQR pic.twitter.com/W2cOnbQHWj

— Randy Jewel Morgan (@RebelNutt18) October 27, 2020

C’mon, you know we only cheat by funneling cash to star players through their family’s church and then strong-arming the NCAA into keeping them eligible by having a large yella man who likes to hit stuff with his own brand of 2x4s. Can’t you tell that’s how we run this game by all of the blue chip recruits we’ve gotten lately? Huh? Oh.

Anyway, Auburn has had some major buildup coming in the form of karma against LSU. The double digit leads blown over the past two years, with all the pass interference calls going against Auburn in 2018 are sure to somehow Yeerk their way into the back judge’s ear and force him to throw a flag on the purple Tigers. It’s going to happen. We’re going to get an all-SEC West alliance of Barn Cheatin’ going on in 2020.

Now, I’d love that, because it means we can win all of our division games, pissing off EVERYBODY and getting some victories while we’re at it in the year that doesn’t matter.

Let’s boil down the wild games in this series to a few choice words.

Photo finish. Last second. Controversial. Turnovers. Missed kicks. Poor clock management. Crowd involvement. Heisman winners. Natural disasters. Nicotine.

Now, to create the perfect outcome for tomorrow’s game, adding in Halloween and a full moon and a pandemic and the election.

Auburn and LSU will play a perfectly fun first half. There will be a bunch of points scored because neither defense is really all that good. LSU hits two or three big pass plays, and Auburn gets a breakaway run from Tank Bigsby and a long touchdown through the air. There will be a gadget play that works and one that blows up spectacularly. I have no designation on which team those happen to.

After halftime, it’s a close game, but LSU builds their lead in the third quarter with some defensive adjustments and another long pass play for a score. As the fourth quarter starts, Auburn trails by two scores. Then the turnovers happen. Whoever’s playing quarterback tomorrow will throw a pick, leading to a score for Auburn, and then in the final five minutes, Bo Nix and Tank Bigsby lead a methodical drive down the field and Auburn goes up by a point.

LSU will have a couple minutes left to salvage a win, needing only a field goal. They quickly move into range for the kick, but in their greed they go for the end zone from the Auburn 25. Offensive pass interference is called on a play where both the receiver and defender are hand-fighting, and the 15-yard penalty moves LSU back to where only a 57-yard field goal would win the game. With just five seconds left, Ed Orgeron trots out the kicking team, but the kick misses. Auburn roughs the kicker but doesn’t get called for it. Tigers (blue ones) win.

In the aftermath, Donald Trump criticizes Ed Orgeron for bad coaching on Twitter, and says that Big Ten football is way better (they love him in Iowa!). The southern states revolt and go blue. LSU joins Barn Cheatin’, Inc. and as a full moon sets on Halloween on the Plains, 2020 is put back in order.

from College and Magnolia - All Posts https://www.collegeandmagnolia.com/2020/10/30/21542277/auburn-lsu-and-the-case-for-resetting-2020

#IFTTT #Blogger #auburn #auburn fast #wareagle #AuburnFamilyNews #war eagle #sec #football news #aubu

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frankkjonestx · 4 years

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Female hyenas kill off cubs in their own clans

Female hyenas may be out for cubs’ blood — even within their own clans. New research suggests that infanticide may be part of a strategy females use to maintain their social standing.

“It’s not that these events are weird one-off things … this is actually a pretty significant source of mortality,” says Eli Strauss, a behavioral ecologist at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. Strauss and his colleagues scoured three decades of data on spotted hyena populations in Kenya to study deaths of cubs less than a year old (SN: 4/23/02). Of 99 observed deaths, 21 could be attributed to infanticide, always by female killers. Starvation and lions also took many young cubs’ lives.

The infanticide observations made the team wonder why hyenas kill within their own group. It “seems sort of counterintuitive if animals benefit from living socially,” Strauss says. Though hyenas spend much of their time alone, group living allows them to defend their turf against rival hyena clans and to gang up against threatening lions, he says.

In an act of mild aggression, two female hyenas approach a mother nursing her cubs. E. Strauss

Hyena mothers give birth in an isolated den. But typically within a few weeks, they move their cubs to a communal den. Such dens shelter little ones from large predators that can’t enter the sanctuary’s small access holes, says Ally Brown, an environmental biology student at Michigan State University in East Lansing. But the communal den presents other risks — all the cases of infanticide occurred in its vicinity, documented by researchers who either found the dead cubs or observed the clans from cars that serve as mobile blinds (SN: 4/23/02).

Female hyenas kill cubs in the same way that they attack small prey. A hyena “would just go up to a cub and grab it by the skull and crush it,” says Brown, who presented the work in a poster at the Ecological Society of America’s 2020 meeting held virtually the week of August 3. And close kin weren’t necessarily immune — one female targeted her sister’s two cubs, coaxing them out of the den before killing both.

Female hyenas kill cubs by crushing their skulls — the same way that adult hyenas kill small prey. Kate Yoshida

A hint at what spurs such slayings lies in the hyenas’ ranks. In hyena societies, males may come and go while females stick around as permanent members (SN: 3/28/16). Aggressive interactions and alliances help determine which hyenas are on top, and all individuals know where they stand, Strauss says.

Female cubs that reach adulthood can grow a maternal line, which helps boost that family group’s rank. In nearly all cases studied, killers ranked higher than the victim’s mother. That suggests that some females may use infanticide to keep their rivals’ bloodlines down.

In 11 out of 21 infanticides, dead cubs were eaten. Since timings of cub killings didn’t correlate with prey availability and since hungry males weren’t killing cubs, the researchers concluded that consuming the dead cubs wasn’t the main motivation for the attacks. Strauss, Brown and Michigan State behavioral ecologist Kay Holekamp also shared their results May 2 in a preprint posted at bioRxiv.org.

“Infanticide is a very difficult to observe phenomenon,” says Elise Huchard, a behavioral ecologist at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique and the University of Montpellier in France who was not involved with the work. The number of cases with known cause of death and quality of the observations contribute to the strength of the study, Huchard says.

More is known about why males kill young, Huchard says. In other species, such as lions, for instance, males may kill young animals so that that the mothers will become sexually receptive sooner. Similar behavior has been observed in dolphins (SN: 7/21/15). This study now also shows that in some species, females compete to pass on their genes, but through offspring survival instead of by vying for opportunities to mate. With high competition for reproduction, “males and females will do anything to promote their own offspring, including killing the offspring of others,” Huchard says.

Despite their treatment of others’ cubs, female hyenas can be “very attentive and diligent mothers,” Strauss says. Hyena moms nurse their cubs for around 14 months and help them get enough food even after they’re weaned. And mothers seem to recognize their loss when a cub is killed, Strauss says, sometimes making distressed sounds or grooming the dead cub.

from Tips By Frank https://www.sciencenews.org/article/female-hyena-moms-kill-cubs-own-clans

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chmerkovskiyvalentin · 5 years

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You would think that someone who has walked the runway for Dolce & Gabbana and Elie Tahari would be comfortable in front of an audience, but Sailor Brinkley-Cook says it is just the opposite because for runway, you only have to do one thing — walk and not fall down, but there is so much more to dancing.

“Dancing is such a different animal,” she tells Parade.com in this one-on-one interview about her experience on Dancing with the Stars. “I’ve never danced before, so that in itself is hard, and then, also, there’s the fact of performing the dance and having to memorize it. Even professional dancers, when they have a dance that they’re about to perform, have weeks and weeks to prepare for it, and with Dancing with the Stars, it’s barely even one week. It’s like four or five days to really perfect it.”

Sailor, of course, stepped in to replace her mother Christie Brinkley when Christie injured her right arm in a fall during rehearsals, which was serious enough to require a cast. So, unlike other competitors, Sailor only had days for partner Val Chmerkovskiy to teach her the first night’s dance number, but she pulled it off, even earning 18 points.

“I still feel a little behind because a lot of the work that everyone else did in those first two or three weeks, like my mom explained to me, was a lot of understanding how to dance,” Sailor says. “It’s not entirely learning the choreography from the go, it’s like, ‘Here are the exercises to help with your frame, and here are the exercises to help with launching forward or finding your footing.’ There’s a lot of little components that were taught to the other contestants that I’m just now learning while also learning choreography.”

Tonight, as has been announced, is movie night on DWTS, and while the celebs are not allowed to reveal what movie they will be dancing to, Sailor was able to share what it means to her.

“Not to give it away, but it is one of my favorite movies in the history of the world,” she says. “I love it. I really love what we’re doing. I have a whole troop with me and it’s really fun choreography that, I think, is going to make everyone smile ear to ear. It’s going to be a really fun thing to perform.”

Is it true that in elementary school you dropped out of your school recitals because of nerves?

That is true. I dropped out of all of the recitals and everything that I’ve ever done, and I think it’s this panic of doing something active in front of a group of people that aren’t also doing it. That is my deepest anxiety. I’ve done runway, but it just feels different because all you have to do literally is to walk. I’ve never been trained in runway walking or anything, so it was never something that really panicked me. I think dancing is so different because of the whole action. It really is a performance. You’re creating a character that you have to embody rather than just walking and looking pretty, you know?

That said, does it help or hurt to have your mom and your boyfriend in the audience? Do they make you feel more nervous or less nervous?

It honestly is equally as nerve-wracking as it is calming. It helps me out, because it’s nice to be able to see them before I go on, and it grounds me a bit in the whole experience, because this has all been so hectic that I’ve been like, “Is this really happening? Is this really going on? Now I’m about to go on stage.” It’s like this whole panic. So, being able to see my mom and my boyfriend and they’re like, “Okay, just do it, just have fun with it,” it helps a lot. But also, especially last week, performing the rumba in front of my whole family, a very sensual dance, finding them in the corner of my eye was like, “How am I not supposed to laugh?”

What’s the best part of having Val as a partner?

He is so patient and so talented. He owns a studio where he has taught children and adults. He’s taught so many people from so many walks of life that I think he really understands and sympathizes with people who have never danced before learning to do this.

Also, he’s from Russia, but raised mostly in Brooklyn, New York, so he’s got a lot of the same sense of humor as me, a lot of the same slang as me, and it just feels a lot more comfortable learning something so new and scary with someone who I feel understands me a bit more, my little nuances and stuff. It’s nice to have him to look at through all the craziness of performing. I just catch his face and I’m like, “Oh, I’m dancing with Val, my buddy.”

As you’re going through this process, what are you discovering about yourself?

My first reaction to this all happening was, “All right, I’m devastated that my mom can’t do this, and she’s so devastated that she can’t do this, how can I help?” Then the next day, I’m on the plane, it’s about to take off, and I got a call, “You’re the solution.” My first reaction was, “No!, because I don’t know how to dance. I have dropped out of every performance that I signed up for, and I don’t have a good track record of being a performer, so it immediately terrified me.

And then I was like, “Damn, the reason why I should do this is because of how scary it is for me.” It has turned into this massive lesson of not letting the things that you’re afraid of stand in the way of doing that thing. This has been such an incredible opportunity and such an incredible experience, just being with everyone and going to the rehearsal studio every day, pushing out incredible energy of nerves and excitement, it’s great. I really love the people that I get to work with every day on the set, and it’s so inspiring. So, it’s awesome to have learned that even though I was scared of doing it, it’s not as daunting as it seems once you just do it. Nothing is ever that scary, 99 percent of the time.

It’s like the Nike slogan, right? Just Do It.

Exactly. I literally have that reminder on my phone. At 9 a.m. every morning a reminder goes off on my phone: Just Do It.

A lot of people lose weight when they come on Dancing with the Stars. How are you doing with that, because you’ve talked before about having body image issues?

It’s only a little perk to get super fit. Dancing is an incredible workout, and, honestly, I was telling Val that I have had a lot of body image issues, and I’ve dealt with a lot of ups and downs with myself and how I’ve viewed myself and my identity, and I’ve attached that to what I look like. So, it’s like, if I’m not skinny enough, I’m not doing well enough, I’m not succeeding, you know? If I’m too big, I’m too lazy.

I’ve always attached those things to myself, and as I grow older, I am learning to stop creating those stupid boundaries for myself and those stupid ideals on myself, and to just find a balance throughout life, and to try and enjoy all the little parts of life. When you’re worrying about how many calories are in your meal, when you’re worrying about, “Oh, I’ve got to run my five miles to get skinny,” when you’re stressing out on all that, you miss out on such a massive amount of life, which are all the mistakes: the too much pasta one night, and the dance party you could have attended instead of going to the gym, you know?

So, dancing, for me, has been so monumental in my confidence and the way I view my body, because I get up, I go to work to dance, and to use my body as a tool, it’s, literally, the most fabulous thing I’ve ever done. I love it so much because I feel like at the end of the day, I am exhausted, everything is sore, I’m aching, and it’s amazing. It’s the best feeling in the world.

And you’re more in control of yourself.

Exactly. I wake up and I feel like I’m really going to a job that I have to work so incredibly hard on, not only mentally but also physically, that it’s really rewarding, and so awesome. I always had a little thing growing up that I thought I wanted to be a professional athlete because I just think it seems so rewarding, but I was never that good at any sport so that never happened for me, so this has sort of been living out my little dream of being able to go to work to move my body. That’s my job right now, and it’s so great.

You started modeling at 15. Your mom is such an icon in the modeling world. Was it hard to follow in her footsteps? Do people have unrealistic expectations of you as a result?

Definitely. I never wanted to model at all. That was never something in my game plan in terms of what I thought my life was going to be. When I was growing up, I wanted to be a comedian, I wanted to be an athlete. I had all these things in mind that were always very down in the dirt of life, you know? I wanted to be a filmmaker, I wanted to be a photographer, I wanted to make jokes, or I wanted to be working my body all day doing some type of sport. Those were always the things, so I never thought of my life turning into having to look good and be in front of the cameras and pose.

I never thought that would happen, but then as I was going to my mom’s shoots — I was visiting her on set when I was 14 or 15, people started being like, “Hey, you actually are really pretty, could I take a photo of you?” Or, “Do you want to do a shoot?” Or, “I know someone who could do really good makeup on you.” I kept getting those remarks, and I was always like, “No. That’s ridiculous. You’re kidding. Like, no.”

And then I just was like, “Why not? I’ll try it.” I loved it for the aspect of creating something with a group of other people and watching how everyone works to create a set of images, and just the whole inspiration creatively behind it.

It definitely was hard to follow in my mom’s footsteps, and that was always something that screwed with my head a bit, but at the end of the day, I show up to work, I do my best, I act myself, and I bring whatever foot forward I can bring, and that’s all that matters. Whatever door gets opened for me through my mom, I have to keep that door open or else it’ll shut. No one cares at the end of the day.

You mentioned also liking to take pictures. So, do you think long term you might end up behind the camera?

I honestly have no idea what to do long term. I’m only 21. I do enjoy bringing my camera around and taking photos of everyone. I’m very much a relationship-oriented person, I love people, and I love what makes every person different, and I like to capture that in photos. So, if I could somehow turn a very active lifestyle into something with photography aspects in it, that would be awesome. I don’t know if I would be a photographer, I just know that I think I’m always going to carry a camera around in my life and try to do something with the photos I produce.

You mentioned wanting to be a comedian. Are you funny?

I’m not that funny. Especially as a child, I would hide behind my humor, so I would always make self-deprecating jokes and always crack up about something uncomfortable. That was my defense mechanism, and it still is in a lot of ways, but I realized I could never stand in front of a crowd and try to make them laugh. That would kill me. That would literally be the worst thing ever. I just like it when I get a little whim of a funny joke and someone laughs, and I get to see their smile, and that’s fine. That dream left as quickly as it came.

Dancing with the Stars returns tonight for night three of performances at 8 p.m. ET/PT on ABC.

#val chmerkovskiy #sailor brinkley cook #dwts #dwts28 #dancing with the stars #Team SailaV #val x sailor #s28

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