#lot of the same folks migrated over from one to the other...

[13thpythagoras]

you really think the russian service doesn't exist? or here you go

FSB

i mean sorry i deadpan deadnamed them didn't mean to trigger

I mean, sure?? But what is the thought process behind this move?

[volo-omnia]

Pokemon Legends Arceus is about Home and what it means to create a Home, change my mind (a mini essay)

Main series titles in the Pokemon series tend to follow themes and explorations of them. With mythology and tradition from Gold/Silver, our relationship to nature in Ruby/Sapphire, truth vs ideals in Black and White, and even the reoccurring themes of treasure and past vs future in Scarlet and Violet.

While PLA is a new departure from most series titles, it still explores a bunch of themes that are central to its story. While the land of ancient Hisui is partial to old traditions, divine gods, and the endless wild, several characters in the game have a recurring theme surrounding on the idea of "Home". This could be how "home" is defined, how one creates a home, and what it means to lose one.

One of the foremost examples of this is you, the player. While we know nothing of the player character outside of what is shown in the intro sequence and possible dialogue choices, the prompt of PLA is obvious. You were taken from your home by Arceus to be dropped into Hisui. Whatever life you had before, you will never come back to. And upon waking up on the beach that Laventon finds you, you have little to no memory, no money, no pokemon, and no where to go.

You have no home.

Now for the player character while it can be interpreted or headcanon a variety of possibilities, (such as the player character being the same player character from D/P/Pt) because it's a player character and meant to be a blank slate, we essentially don't know anything about the hero canonically outside of this. For all intents and purposes the hero has no home to begin with. But there is one thing we know. By the end of the game when you finally meet and defeat Arceus, he doesn't send us back home. We remain in Hisui. Once again, we cannot return to the home we came to. Hisui is our forever home now, but the choice is ours whether we accept or reject it.

This theme occurs a lot with the other characters of the game, to which we will be going through them.

One of the first characters in this game that also hits with this theme is Commander Kamado. Throughout the game it is specifically described as to how his character game to be. His home in Kanto was destroyed by wild pokemon, to which he and the other villagers had to immigrate to Hisui. Upon landing at Prelude Beach, they build Jubilife Village, a haven with large protective gates and guards always on patrol, ensuring security. It's their home, and Kamado repeatedly tells you throughout the game how he's determined to build a home for the village and himself. Even when the skies turn blood red and he banishes you into the wilds, he's determined to fight tooth and nail to protect his home.

This is one of the more obvious examples. Kamado has no home to return to. But in doing so with perseverance, he creates a new one. Even though Hisui is quite different from his old home in Kanto, he does settle with creating a new home, one that is safe, prospering, and peaceful. But when his home is threatened, he does not go back down to protect it.

A home is something you build.

Another similar example of this is the dynamic of Adaman and Irida. Their clans too migrated from other lands to Hisui, eventually settling on the land and living with the local pokemon. From their eyes, a home is something you must share and work together with. Even though they both warred over their patron gods, both the young clan leaders are determined to create a home that is peaceful and without bloodshed between them. However since this is the age of religious folks, insulting one's household deity is also akin to insulting one's home.

To some, a god is a home.

Later in the game we also encounter Lady Cogita. She like most, has no home. While Hisui is the land she has lived in for many years, her original home is long lost to time. As one of the Celestica, all of her people and culture have long disappeared, her god gone, and her old home now reduced to ruins scattered across the land. While she does reside in the Ancient Retreat, was it ever truly her home? That given her long life, does she ever miss the home she once had, and still vividly remembers? Is a home a home if you have no one to share it with? Does she ever feel homesick for her god that no longer answers her? She is a character with many mysteries to her, but you can't help but wonder what burdens could be going through her mind. The deities of time and space may have created the land, but is it the same as creating a home?

And most of all we cannot forget Volo. Your rival, nemesis, and literary foil. Unlike the others, he has no home, but has no home to return to either. Like Cogita, he too has lost all of his Celestica roots. However unlike Cogita, it's unknown whether he actually knows what their home was like before. Since we don't know canonically if Volo was alive at the same time as Cogita, we can assume he came long after the ruin of the Celestica, as he regularly questions her on the myths and traditions of a culture he isn't familiar with. He is a character that was born without a home, and tries desperately to pick up its pieces by ancient stories and writings on ruin walls. He also desperately yearns for his household god, as Arceus has long disappeared in the eyes of the world along with the Celestica.

Volo, as a character, is defined by his homesickness.

However unlike the hero, Volo refuses to accept Hisui as his home. As we all know at the end of the game when Volo reveals his true colors, he mentions that he wishes to subjugate Arceus to create a new world. In a desperate attempt to create a home he can finally accept, his wish is to create one with the powers of his god, and have pain and suffering be long-forgotten concepts. What makes Volo the villain in this scenario however, is that in order to complete this goal, it will destroy the homes of everyone else. In a grand act of selfishness, Volo is willing to destroy the homes of others in order to create his own. A home is something he is willing to destroy.

Overall throughout the game, the theme of what makes a "home" is repeated. Whether it be characters losing their home, characters trying to build a home, or characters trying to simply find a home. And as you play the game, the world around the hero changes. As humans and pokemon start to work together, their lives and homes start to become intertwined, creating a new life for everyone around them.

All lives touch other lives to create something anew and alive. That is a home.

[shapeshiftersvt]

Big Update Post

Hiya, shapeshifters!

We have some announcements to make this evening.

Here’s the short of it:

The Shapeshifters website will be temporarily down this Sunday evening, March 3, 2024 at Midnight EST.

When it comes back up, you’ll find a shiny new website that is organized the same way with a couple of exceptions.

The Off-the-Rack Sale and Holographic listings will be temporarily delisted.

The Goth listings will be renamed. You will find Rainbow Constellations, Monster Mouths, and a couple of new options listed under Cosmic Horror.

The Skin Tone listings will have brand new additional color skin tone options!

The Island Time listings will also have a new option available.

The Binding 101 FAQ will be rolled into its own section in the FAQ.

There will be a brand new Events Page!

The blog will be temporarily disabled.

If you’re curious about the long of it, keep reading.

For everyone else, we appreciate your patience during this transition! Like so many other transitions, we’re delighted about where it’s going. 

Website Downtime

Shapeshifters is finally moving to Shopify! We’ve done a lot of work over the past few months building a more organized, streamlined website that will be easier to access for you and update for us. On Sunday night, we’ll shut down the current website to pause orders so that we can migrate everything cleanly.

Off-the-Rack and Holographic Listings

The Off-the-Rack listings will be delisted to give us a chance to reorganize the remaining stock so we don’t accidentally double-sell anything. 

The Holographic listings will be delisted while we assess our fabric options. Long-time customers might notice that we’ve removed Liquid Metal and Oil Slick from the Holo listings; we’re sourcing replacements and new options throughout spring. Once we know our options, we’ll either re-launch the Holo listings, or move the currently available fabric Prism to another home so it won’t be all alone anymore.

If you’ve been eyeing either Prism or an Off-the-Rack, buy it before Sunday if you can!

Expanded Skin Tone Range

We’re very excited to announce three new skin tone options will be available after the website migration: Pine, Chestnut, and Laurel! Pine is a pale shade, while Chestnut and Laurel are both on the darker end of the spectrum.

And, the new and improved Skin Tone listings will be the perfect place to see the results of our latest photoshoot! We’re excited for y’all to get to see these photos around the site and on the listings. We sought out models of color with darker skintones both to fill a gap in the modeled photos in our listings, and to show off our darker skin tones. All of our models were amazing, our photographer was great, and the photos are fantastic! We really leaned into the cozy Vermont vibes for this one.

Events Page

We’re going to events again! Hooray!

And we’re not just going to conventions and conferences and Pride festivals. We’re also talking queer markets, fashion shows, and binder sewing workshops!

That’s right, some lucky folks in the New England area will have the opportunity to take an in-person class with Eli, our head tailor and the developer of our DIY Binder Sewing Kits. They will walk you, step-by-step, through sewing your own custom-sized binder and help you troubleshoot along the way. These workshops are designed for sewists of any level and do not require you to own a sewing machine.

If you’d like to host a sewing workshop or would like to have us at any other event, educational, celebratory, fashionable or otherwise, please contact us!

Thanks once again  for bearing with us during this transition and we can’t wait for you all to see the new site!

[prof-peach]

Having real fun reading through the backlog of the blog.

I keep wondering if this is the kind of place my trainer would randomly book a tour to. She requires her chair for regular locomotion but has been working on getting a more versatile model. She can be carried by most of her team but would much rather roll herself.

I can't imagine a lot of the island has easy paths for wheelchairs though. That said, she did manage the Hoenn region, though Sinnoh and its unreasonable amount of mountain defeated her. Do you think anyone knowing her physical limitation would try and talk her out of coming?

I can also picture her seeing Peach wrestling a 'mon and pointing it out to her Machoke, going "I told you I wasn't the only one!"

She is also pleased by the don't-send-10'yo's-on-their-own stance. She went through an academy that taught much the same skills (when her parents couldn't talk her out of wanting to do her trainers' journey) and left at 16 with two pokemon, a treeco who picked her, and a Machoke from the school who wanted to make sure such a student was ok.

The Island prides itself on being accessible, theres ramps everywhere, elevators in any buildings allowing public access to higher floors, the hotel is its own buisness but accomodates for this too, rentable mons who can help folks around, and almost everywhere is wheelchair acessible, including any doors being power assisted.

Not only do we at Dotaku deal with A LOT of footfall, we handle a lot of older clientel above and beyond the youngsters, and to top it off, pokemon with disabilities move around the different locations too. The island caters to that, you can even get up to the top of the mountain for the view if you wish, it's been carefully carved out and planned so anyone can visit and have relative ease getting about, though we do advise anyone going up that hill with mobility issues at the vesy least take a pokemon with them to aid should they become tired. We have plenty that are happy to help if visitors dont have a pokemon strong enough too.

You can book a tour with any facility individually if you like, or do a day tour. We have staff leading them regularly, giving visitors informed details about various pokemon and locations. Or, if you prefer to venture alone, its all acessibe and open to the public. There are some buildings of limits but those are clesrly sign posted and overseen by staff and pokemon to make sure no one wanders in and gets hurt, ot ends up in a secure area they shouldnt be.

Dotaku is just one big island park, catering to all. Phone the head office for further details, we have great members of staff always ready to help clear up any questions you may have, and you can even book any specific events ahead of time.

During the summer we have cook outs, independant vendors with hand made trinkets, the kite flying festival which is quite something to watch if not partake in, the migration of the swellow that'll come by, theres lapras sightings this time of year cose to the shores, and at the end of summer the Jumpluff move off the island to go inland for more tame weather, quite a beautiful sight to see so many catching the wind to go home, usually I'll fly with them to the mainland so its a good time to see a handful of dragon types on guard duty. Theres a fair where you can buy local produce, partake in friendly battles to earn some neat reward items, three contests, one for beginners, one is a costume one anyone can enter, and the other is more professional for those who want a challenge, each judged by telented guests who come in from all over. If you need a break our daycare can offer your pokemon respite, theres a groomers on site so a new hairdo might be on the cards too, or just a massage to ease tension. Water based sport is avaiable, with small canoes, boats and gear available to rent if that appeals. Theres the odd talk on pokemon care from our experts, and opportunities to ask questions and dig deeper into some of the pokemon the island handles. Dont forget the dock side fair, if you just want to eat junk food and play some arcade games with your pokemon, more than reasonable to take time for that, grab lunch at the cafe, or just chill out and watch the waves while listening to the Dewgong laid out on the rocks.

On wednesday you can challenge the professors, staff and rangers, we try to give an evening to guests who want to battle us for the fun of it, but none of us use our core teams for saftey reasons, and will pick pokemon based on whoever is close at hand and willing, could be anything. If you win you can get a ribbon bangle, which some enjoy collecting much like badges, though they hold no weight in the league.

Other staff are more than free to fight with their true teams, so predicting their strategy may be easier, but I never will, and will refuse a proper battle with my core group should someone request it, I say this now to save any dissapointment.

I'm sure you'd see me from time to time, but summer is the busy month, plenty to do, so don't mind me if im run off my feet, I do try to show face whenever possible but work comes first. Best bet is to keep your eyes on the skies, youll see the flash of orange and yellow of my dear charizard Boa ferrying me around, and probably get a sense of where I may end up in the day. If you spot Val wandering around, I suggest NOT trying to pet her, many have made this mistake, many have been bitten. Every localised sign has stickers on them reminding people of specific pokemon not to approach or pet. She's on every sign.

Any visitor is given a saftey breifing, and all areas have signs for people to see the rules, as some locations dont allow flash photography, loud noises, or touching of the pokemon.

[tomorrowusa]

The first hominins in Europe were Ukrainian. Okay, to be more accurate, we now know that the oldest record of a hominin presence in Europe is in Korolevo in western Ukraine.

These folks were Homo erectus, a species which went extinct before the Neanderthals.

Stone tools in Ukraine dated to 1.4 million years ago may be the earliest solid evidence of humans in Europe, a new study reveals. The makers of these tools likely weren't Homo sapiens but a close, now-extinct relation. Scientists analyzed finds from the archaeological site of Korolevo in western Ukraine, where researchers have unearthed stone tools, such as choppers, from the Paleolithic (2.6 million to 10,500 years ago) since the site's discovery in 1974.  The artifacts at Korolevo were made by hominins — the group that includes modern humans and the extinct species more closely related to humans than any other animal — but it's unknown which species created them. Other hominins reached Europe long before Homo sapiens did. [ ... ] The earliest stone tools at Korolevo may be about 1.4 million years old, the scientists found — meaning the site contains the earliest known evidence of hominins in Europe. "Confidently dated early hominin sites are scarce in Europe," Toshiyuki Fujioka, a senior researcher of cosmogenic nuclide dating at Spain's National Research Center on Human Evolution who did not participate in this study, told Live Science. "This study provides a much-needed reliably dated chronological site to add fuel to our discussion on ancient human migration."  While the tools are too old to be the work of either modern humans or our closest extinct relatives, Neanderthals and Denisovans, they could be the work of Homo erectus, an extinct human species that first appeared in Africa about 2 million years ago and later spread to Asia and Europe, the researchers said. 

The so called "young Earth creationists" like Speaker "MAGA Mike" Johnson effectively think that Homo erectus or other hominin relatives did not exist because the universe is just over 6,000 years old. 😕

BTW, one practice I find confusing is that in the same article the term "human" is used BOTH to specifically denote Homo sapiens AND to refer to to all species in the genus Homo. Scientists and science journalists need to address this issue. Call me a sapiensist, but I personally use "human" only for Homo sapiens.

This chart from The Economist gets the terminology right.

BONUS TRACK v češtině: Czech scientists had a lot to do with the recent research at Korolevo. So if you know any Czech, you might enjoy this vid from the Czech Republic's Academy of Sciences.

[shukakumoodboard]

anon i hope you are able to find this because you asked my original blog and i’m trying to stealthily migrate so my irls can't find me dkgjhfkjl

answers below the cut <3

would you like some fandomy thoughts?

1. list 3 positive things about your current fandom(s) [which ofc im answering for gaalee]

the discord i'm in for it is the highlight of my day and forms approximately 65% of my social life! who knew you could hyperfixate on some gay ninjas and as a result, end up visiting people irl and getting christmas cards and making incredible friends all over the world? pretty sure i have standing invites to homes in at least 3 different countries rn. incredible

fic quality is fuckin'. superior. and i'm not saying that because i write, i'm saying that as a reader. it's a smallish fandom and yet there's folks who can write full-length novels like @sagemoderocklee and @the-moss-project, people who can write every possible trope and au greyson's georg @ghoste-catte and @urieskooki and so many others i couldn't list them all. it's beyond obvious that the authors who write the gaalees are SO passionate about them. writers i lov you evryday

seguing from that into art!?!? pleas i have a dragon hoard of fanart only for my fics and there's over 100 pieces. A HUNDRED ARE TIOYU GIKISDINDIGME. giving u all a kissy rn. also the way i can get on discord and get immediately smacked in the face with bespoke paneenis liike every day help. gheelpp don't look at me. i will save my money and commission every one of u if its the last htign i do

2. a headcanon you weren’t sure about at first but have come to like!

oho! ready for this one? i was initially not super on board with hairy!lee. what was i on actually. me, a Wrong, and now i will purposefully include it in every fic as a sign of penance for my sins

3. answered!

4. say something nice about a ship you don’t ship (it can be another ship in your fandom, a mutual’s OTP, etc)

those who know me know that i strictly see leesaku as a brOTP, like those dudes are buddies to me. but that being said, i think leesaku as a romantic pairing is far healthier for sakura than her canon partner. lee is capable of so much love and forgiveness and they do parallel each other so much as the like... "underdog"/non-gifted member of their respective teams. she deserves love and support and understanding and lee would be genuinely ideal for it.

5. something you see in fics a lot and love

sunans (and team gai) being multilingual. oml one of my fave headcanons. you cannot tell me these different countries with different isolated villages are all casually speaking the same language when in big chunks of nart they didn't even like. get along properly. i loooove the concept of a shinobi common tongue and regional languages. further on that same thing, given team gai is pretty chinese-coded, i think it makes sense that they'd also be speaking another langauge, whether taught by gai or just because of their own independent histories or whatever. @sagemoderocklee has some truly stunning worldbuilding and it where i got my love for this hc from <3

6. something you see in art a lot and love

h-h-h-hHEIGHT DIFFERENCEEEEEEE

ok joking aside i refuse to believe gaara made it past like 5'3" that man did not sleep for his whole adolescence. conversely lee was probably on the Optimum Macros and that healthy eating would 100% contribute to maximum height gains etc. that man deserves to be 6 feet tall, that's my opinion and im right

thank you so much for the opportunity to gush about my blorbos <3

[bobbinacrossafricatake2]

Oh what a beautiful morning!

June 7 & 8, 2024

Our last two mornings on safari and we did ok (to say the least). On departure day from Cherero, We had breakfast scheduled for 6:30 AM, and since we’re obsessively punctual, we finished getting ready in the room and headed to the common area. One of the security guys met us part way, and escorted us not to the main tent, but to a freshly cut plot out in the plain. The table was beautifully set, and there we had a yummy breakfast as the sun rose in the distance. Wow. Our hosts bid us farewell and Anaeli made a point of letting us know that the team has been together for about a year. It’s unusual not to have more turnover. Their synchronization showed. We headed out across the plain, slowly toward the airstrip for our hand over to the Namiri Plains Camp folks. The high grasses looked particularly beautiful in the golden light of morning, soon to be eaten as the migration makes its way to Morumba Plain. It made us think of the Oklahoma song: Oh what a beautiful morning - just with grass vice corn! We also noticed, as we have all along in the Serengeti, the scale of the many flowers - tiny pops of color - scattered against the vastness of the plains. As we crossed via the secondary roads on our way to the primary road, we spotted various animals just waking up. Along the remainder of the drive, a lion giraffes, antelopes, jackals, and myriad other creatures including fighting dikdiks and banded mongooses. Periodically, as he has done all along, if we were quiet for too long, Anaeli would call back to us: “How’re you doing?” Love that about him. We also noticed that over our three days in the west, the roads have improved considerably from the soggy, post-rains state they were in when we arrived - no more risk of getting stuck in the mud! The western Serengeti and Anaeli have been good to us. Such a treat to have had the same guide - and a really good one - for five days running.

At the airstrip, Anaeli spotted Innocent from Namiri Plains Camp, who he knew and gave a good review. Then came probably the most frustrating episode of our trip. Anaeli had gotten us to the airstrip early in case the Asilia people (parent company of Namiri) also got there early. They did, but we had to wait for another trio of guests to arrive via plane. The message that their plane was due to arrive at noon had not been passed along. Their flight was late. We gave the rangers at the airstrip our packed lunches from Cherero, in anticipation of having lunch on arrival at Namiri. It was a confluence of bad communications between camps/companies, and bad choices by Namiri. In terms of the latter, save for a short visit to some hippos to distract us, we were left to sit in the airstrip parking lot for a total of three hours. NOT the way we wanted to spend our second to last day on safari. We started to agitate then got firmer and firmer that this was not acceptable (weren’t there other vehicles - oh no, it’s too far; can’t we leave via the second Namiri vehicle at the parking lot? - oh no, it’s a private booking). Nothing was done. By the time the other guests’ plane got in, we were both pretty pissed off. Thankfully, the new guests (and our safari companions for a day and a half) were lovely: two sisters and their stepmother. We had a pleasant drive to camp, chitchatting and checking out a sight here and there. At camp, we let the managers know that we wanted to have a chat, but please let us enjoy lunch and our afternoon drive first. They already knew about the incident, knew we were unhappy and later were very gracious about taking responsibility and apologizing. At this writing, it remains to be seen if they and Mike, our “Africa guy” will sort out some sort of accommodation for the time lost and frustration. More about what made up for the agony to come….

Lunch was lovely, and we have a “butler” (waitress), Zawadi, who is delightful with a good sense of humor. We barely had time in our room and were off on our afternoon game drive. Innocent, our guide, is paired with Ally, a guide in training, and they do well together. Innocent described this drive as “window shopping” for the serious shopping the following day. Our first sighting was a big ellie, doing some unmentionables, and his buddy, in the background, knocking over a tree. It’s a toss up which was more interesting: the birds or the migration. Our vehicle mates are serious bird peeps so we stopped many times to check out fun varieties to include the especially beautifully lovebirds, superb starling, lilac-breasted roller, and many more. Since we’ve only randomly focused on birds to this point, it was a really nice diversion. Then we found a large mass of wildebeasts moving in formation. It was a different perspective of the migration than what we saw the other day. It’s a force of nature moving along, some running but in a somewhat organized line. And it never stops. They kick up a cloud of dust not unlike PigPen of Peanuts fame. At one point, Innocent drove into the middle of them so we were totally surrounded. A few momentary fights, a few pairs mating, babies calling out for their mamas…. it was a scene that is impossible to describe. While often the wildebeasts are mixed with zebras, in this case the zebras were only on the fringes of the herd. During a good part of it three hyenas were casing the situation, but left without taking action. We won’t forget this in a hurry. On the way back, on the amazing flat plains that go on forever, we’d see rock outcroppings so interesting that they’re like sculptures with trees on the side and on top. Innocent pointed out the Rock Fig trees that grow out of cracks in rocks. Very cool!

From the drive we went straight to the fire pit for a glass of wine. With a dead tree hovering above - another work of nature’s art - the setting looking back at the lodge was beautiful. We loved the fact that the guides came down and joined us, chatting about the day and mixing it up a bit. Even the second (private) guide from the dreaded airport parking lot sat down next to Jill and checked in before his (photographer) guest arrived. After dinner, golf cart back to the room - not too bad of service, given our tent is the furthest away.

The beauty of yesterday morning was all about the surroundings. Today, the beauty of the aminals was off the charts. And that’s saying a lot after four weeks on safari. Ally picked us up in a golf cart at 6:15 AM and when Patricia, Christina and Terri arrived moments later, off we went for our serious (animal) shopping morning. And what a morning it was. We thought we had hit the jackpot when Innocent spotted three cheetahs brothers. Stunning creatures, we watched them sit and keep watch in every direction for a while, then tracked them as they walked, sometimes side by side but more often in a like heading to, well, who cares where they were headed. They were wonderful to watch. Indeed it was just a quick little purchase on our shopping trip in the Eastern Serengeti (Maasai word for Endless Plain). The main events were ahead. We saw a (spread out) group of 4 adult lions and a female. Over the morning, our team dubbed them Scarface (the ugly, scarred one), Pretty Boy (the stunner), Lover Boy (hanging close to/claiming the female), and The Guard (keeping watch). We had great views of them hangin’ out, moving about, and of note: taking serious action in intentioned walking and roars to scare off another male interloper. Innocent had us laughing when he put words to the growls… “Whose land is this? Mine, mine, mine”, as a lion sounds. (You really have to hear it.). The intimidation worked, so no blood had to be spilled. Well, no lion blood today.

On the morning went, with several more views of cheetahs, some great zebras drinking at a watering hole (with zebras around for miles!) some jackels (renamed wolves, as they’ve been re-categorized), a hippo and buffalo in a pond, and a pretty little lizard sunning himself and doing by a few pushups every time he changed position . The highlight of the morning was when Innocent found under a tree in the shade a mama cheetah and five cubs. They were about two months old, so so so so so so adorbs! They were sometimes playful, sometimes sleeping with one in particular (the troublemaker) who first tried to climb the tree, and later got stuck in a branch and took many multiple efforts with dangling and reaching legs - to finally tumble out onto the ground. The cubs were fuzzy, inquisitive and playful, sometimes even climbing on their mama. We learned the markings are like honey badgers to intimidate predators… we could actually see it. At times they tried for milk, but mama was having none of it this morning. She was busy keeping watch. She would occasionally make a call and all five would make their way to her. A fantastic sighting that bookended the very first cats that we saw on our first day on safari on our first trip to Africa: a mama cheetah and cubs. Too cool.

While we watched the cheetahs, we heard someone else peeping/crying. So innocent finally tore us away from the cubs to find a set of lion cubs. (A morning on safari is hard pressed to get better than this!!!). They were tucked in some trees by a rock outcropping a short distance away - more difficult to get a full view, but the peeks of them in between branches, snuggling with one another, resting heads on their (huge) paws. Very very fun. They were about three months old, so quite a bit bigger than the cheetahs.

On the way back to camp, we went by the same watering hole where many zebras were availing themselves of a drink, wading in to get the freshest water. The adult lions were nearby and the zebras weren’t even spooked. In case Namiri Plains had not already demonstrated the accuracy of its name (Namiri is the Maasai name for “Home of Cats”), we had one more cheetah sighting before heading in. Indeed: Oh What a Beautiful Morning!!

Lunch, as now expected, was wonderful. We chatted about how lucky we were in having as our last vehicle buddies Patricia, Christina and Terri. A true She-fari, as Patricia dubbed the five when we first met! We’ve enjoyed the banter, their awe in seeing things for the first time, our mutual awe at seeing - well, everything. Short as our interaction was, we hope to be in touch in the future.

We had good time to blog and check photos before heading out on our afternoon drive, sadly, our last safari drive of the trip. It has been forever that we’ve been in Africa, and has also gone by in a flash. Will there be a “take 3” in Africa? Let’s just say it’s not off the table!

The game drive was a good one — hyenas and hyena babies (to round out “baby day”); a cheetah (because one simply can never get enough); load of birds (particularly at a watering hole where Innocent challenged us to find all the birds); and treat of all treats, a serval cat (small and rather bright orange with spots), a rarity. We got back to camp on the late side, but still chilled out at the campfire before dinner. It was there that we picked up some sentiments from various guides implying a (tourism) rivalry between Kenya and Tanzania. Anaeli had first brought this up in the context of the burning of grasses (slows the migrations progress toward Kenya which is not good for their sighting opportunities), one of the many tour organizers we met was skeptical of the concept, and here again, the guides were keen to point out the riches found more in Tanzania than Kenya. Who knows where truth lies?

Patricia was wiped out so packed it in. We had a lovely dinner with Christina, Terri, and Innocent, talking about Africa, safaris, the impact of Covid and more. As we sat at the table on the open patio, Terri spotted movement in the dining room - a Jennet (pretty, cat-like creature, but not a cat) running across the shelves on the wall. There are seemingly endless new animals to see. Lovely, lovely end to our safari time in this fair land.

[randomvarious]

Today's compilation:

Cajun Spice 1989 Cajun / Folk / Zydeco

Well, folks, it looks like our first comp of this new year is taking us on a trip down to southern Louisiana, aka Acadiana, where Cajun music, in some form or fashion, has been a fixture of the region's culture since the latter part of the 1700s. And if you've ever wondered why Cajun people are called Cajuns in the first place, it's because they originally hailed from Acadia—what are now parts of maritime Canada, Québec, and northern Maine—and if you chop off the front 'A' from 'Acadian' and then say the remainder of the word quickly enough, what you'll inevitably end up saying is 'Cajun.' Simple as!

But why the Acadians didn't end up staying in Acadia was because of a terrible war, namely the Seven Years' one, whose resolution saw the French-speaking territory left in the hands of the British. The British then forced the Acadians into exile and a lot of them ended up migrating all the way down south to lower Louisiana, where, despite France having ceded the land to Spain by that point, they were still welcomed anyway.

So the reason why Louisiana has the most French speakers out of any other state in the Union, rather than the states that border the French-speaking provinces of Canada itself, is pretty much because of that period of Acadian migration. Pretty interesting, no?

But now we forge on to more modern times:

Although Cajun music predates Louisiana's admission into the Union, it didn't really gain much in the way of a national traction until the middish-1980s, which was a time that had also seen America writ large develop a fixation with Cajun food as well. And if you're going to really try to enjoy the cuisine, what better ambiance to pair it with than that same culture's music, right?

Which brings us to this little late 80s comp from roots and world music label Rounder Records here, who, in the earlier part of the decade, had really started to develop their own Cajun stable of artists. Rounder had released a few comps that consisted purely of both Cajun music and its sister genre of zydeco before this one, but all of those releases had originated from the 70s, and almost all of them also consisted of only two or three acts each. This 1989 release, on the other hand, Cajun Spice, was the first one from Rounder to be issued since Cajun music had really started to draw interest in the US outside of Louisiana, and the list of musicians on it was far lengthier too.

But now here's the bad news: it took until getting a few songs deep into this comp for me to finally realize, that out of every instrument that I've ever heard in my life, the one that I might have a most visceral dislike for is the accordion. And that might make my German ancestors furiously turn over in their own graves, but there is just something about the type of sound that emanates out of those strange contraptions that feels so extremely lame and corny to me. And I know that I'm probably not alone in feeling this way, but guess what the lead instrument in Cajun music happens to be. Yep, that's right. The accordion! 😩

Now, I'm sure it's one thing to actually go down to Acadiana and immerse yourself in the culture for a night of good fun, which would include getting down to this unique form of folk-dance music that's found a way to keep on existing, but outside of a setting like that, I don't think I wanna hear much in the way of accordion-led music ever again. At the very least, I've definitely had my fill of it for this year alone 😅.

But with all of that said, and despite my personal distaste for this stuff in general, I can still tell that the tunes on this album are very well-made. The musicians are clearly gifted and what they're playing is definitely infectious...if you can find a way to stand it, which I really can't. But if you're way more tolerant of a prominent accordion than I am, or if you already like Cajun music, or if you're just interested in hearing it for the first time, then I definitely recommend this album. AllMusic gave it four and a half out of five stars and I can definitely see why, because all of it is clearly quality stuff.

No highlights.

[xtrablak674]

Brooklyn Rises - Trevor Brown - Solo Exhibition

Opening reception on April 19, 2008 at Hibiscus Day Spa

As Henry says, in the short promotional video I put together for the exhibition, this was my fourth gallery show, albeit not in a gallery. One of my contemporaries at Project Enterprise had recently opened a day spa in Bedford Stuyvesant of all places, taking advantage of all white migration, and the upwardly mobile Black home owners of this now prestigious Brooklyn neighborhood.

In addition to the seven pieces I had in this show, which were primarily photos of sunrises I took from the window of my apartment in Prospect Heights, I also self-published a book with Blurb of the same name. There were also promotional graphics across all of my social media, all branded especially for the exhibition. I blasted an HTML email to everyone who I had an email address for, this begin the 360 promotions for my exhibitions that I sort of became infamous for. Its too bad my excellent marketing skill came a bit earlier than what folks were ready for, it would have been better embraced today.

Since this was my fourth exhibition I had some left over inventory from my previous shows, and bought it with me to sell on the day of the opening. In addition to several pieces from the exhibition I actually sold several other pieces from the earlier shows that were greatly marked down to sell. I can't recall if I had the book yet, I think that may have come after the successful run.

The show ran from April 12th to May 17th, 2008, with an opening exhibition on April 19th from 1:00pm to 3:00pm. I had a lot of friends come out to support, which I am guessing I captured in the video. This would include poet Patricia Spears Jones, Aunt Susan Galanter, photographer Tom Giebel, artist Henry M. Diaz, artist Timothy Stachecki, my childhood friends Corina Dennison and Sandra Cordero with her twin babies, Flickr friends Paul and Erick Wilund. I was actually overwhelmed at how well-attended the show was even with all of my promotion.

Later on in my career I would get a certain level of unexpressed animosity from peers, because I put forth such a full assault in the promotion and monetization of my exhibitions. I worked out everything from my look, to potential brand sponsorships, and my glossy promotional designs would show up in your inbox, keeping you fully aware of what I was doing, that you weren't.

Also the fact that this particular work was of a medium that didn't always get the most respect from the wider art world, especially if you weren't a whyte cis straight man. I think it was a lot for folks to accept this fabulous gender non-conforming, queer, dark-skinned, articulate, fierce abstract artist.

I want to be clear, no one ever said anything to my face directly, but during time I had joined an artist co-op, and I truly sensed certain energy from folks who were supposed to be as supportive of me, as I was of them, and their work, but it never quite felt like that. People much older than me seemed to be envious of me and my successes, mind you, I never hid the fact that I wanted to exhibit, and I very aggressively pursued just that, I never sat back on my laurels expecting folks to just show up and offer me shows.

I am very proud of this time in my life, as an artist I had moderate success. I was never going to make a living off of my artwork, but I was happy to finally have it out there. In subsequent years my focus has changed into more experimental pieces, and I haven't always been as public about the things I create now, letting the work keep company of a more niche crowd that wouldn't have issues with sometimes the more intimate explorations in the later work. I feel definitively that an artist need to create for themselves, not for others, and I do just that.

[Video and photos courtesy of the Brown Estate]

[robogenko]

I feel sort of... lost... with social media. All of my friends have scattered across so many platforms. More of these platforms are becoming downright inhospitable. There's very few places where I can share all of my art/writing/OC stuff without getting banned or having it deleted. So, I'm signed up for all these different accounts, but.... I never know where to go to post things.

I stay here on tumblr because I am able to find older fan content for things that I enjoy and this is a BIG hub for fanworks AND shitposting. But, I've noticed that I just don't have the same zeal for tumblr I used to have. I have to be careful about what I post and a majority of my art I can't post here anymore. Because of that my original posts are sporadic to non-existent, consequently I get very little engagement here, and many of my friends are no longer really on the platform anymore. There's a few though that are *only* here and I stay for them.

Lots of people on Bsky, but again, the same problems. Very few of my close friends are there, and the ones that are there, are people I know irl and have other ways of contacting. But again, as with tumblr, I still can't post everything there. Even tho I can post *more* there than here, still not everything.

Aethy is the only place where I can post literally everything I make. I have the most freedom of voice, *but* I have very little interest in what the community has become over there. There's tons of fandom posting, sure, but like... none of *my* fandoms are really there, or on Mastdon in general. At least, not from what I've been able to find. So, I have a hard time finding people I want to reach out to and share stories/art with. ALSO there's a huge stigma surrounding the type of artistic freedom they allow, and so it's difficult to put all my eggs in that basket because I know that my audience is going to be *really* limited.

I *wish* more people would go to places like Mastodon. There are so many servers that could fit so many needs. I really think decentralization of social media is the only thing that's going to save us from the tech billionaires turning every community into a hellhole, but it's hard to get people on board. The answer to so many problems of moderation *is* decentralization. Don't like the moderation decisions of an instance? Migrate your account to a different one, or host your own entirely. You'll still be able to follow and be followed by everyone in current instance (with few exceptions) because they are all meant to be cross compatible. But, I digress.

Then there's discord, FA, IB, telegram, but they all sorta have their own problems. Either I can't post my work completely, or I *can* but there's only a few people around worth sharing it with and my friends are elsewhere.

Like, I know we *shouldn't* put all our eggs in one basket, but right now, it feels like I have one sad egg in each basket and each new egg I have no idea where to post it where it will actually be seen/engaged with. People come to all of my socials and just see 1 sad egg sitting there. When... I used to be able to present a basket of abundance that would get folks interested in me and my art/characters. Or at least, I had friends who cared about it enough to engage with it.

TL;DR : I feel stretched thin from all the places I post, but there really isn't a clear solution forthcoming. I really wish I could narrow things down to just the one, but... like.... There's no good answer for which one.

[boredkaiju]

Jaggy: Hard to Explain

(Author's note: wrote this late last year. Never really uploaded any of my writing here. Might post more later, though if folks enjoy reading it here.) ------------------------------------------

Long ago when the world was young, the land and sky was ruled by creatures called “dinosaurs.” These reptilian behemoths wandered the earth, exploring it’s many wonders and terrors long before the race of man spread over the earth to do the same. Among these creatures were gentle plant eaters and vicious carnivores, each doing everything they could to survive in a world that left little room for a peaceful existence.

On a certain day, in the plains between a certain mountain range and valley, there lived a herd of such creatures. Amid these plains lay a massive dinosaur. Its body was covered in dull blue scales that absorbed the sun’s rays. Its huge, roundish body lay on its side, and a massive neck -- as long as its entire body -- sprung from it. This creature was dead, the recent prize of a small pack of vicious beasts. The four beasts were bipedal and hunched; birdlike in shape, but covered in grey scales. In the place of wings were strong arms with vicious claws. Even still, they were nowhere near the size of the behemoth on which they dined, each being barely as big as one of it’s cedar-like legs. The tops of their heads were adorned with two large, prominent ridges protruding from each side of their long snouts, stretching to the back of the skull. These creatures were “dilophosaurs,” cunning and bold pack hunters.

They dined in silence, cheerfully enjoying the fruit of the day’s labors.It was tradition for hunters to eat their fill before dragging the rest back to their pack. There was no time to speak to one another when all this perfectly good meat would go to waste if they left it. Worse still, the flying things might be attracted to the smell of blood and steal some of the food. Wanting to avoid this, the quartet of dilophosaurs kept a close eye on the sky. The flying things were more active than normal today.

One of the dilophosaurs looked up, chewing thoughtfully. He remained idle in his gaze for several moments. Another noticed and looked over at him. “Hey, quit cloud gazing, Laka, unless you want us to take your portion.” The others chuckled slightly. They quite liked this idea.

Laka, without averting his eyes or acknowledging his companion’s question, said “What you suppose they’re up to? Ain’t circling over our heads any.” His gaze followed one of the flying things overhead. 'Pteradons,' they were called. Scaled creatures with wings of leather; larger than a dilophosaur, with vicious beaks and a prominent point on the back of their skulls. Most land dwellers simply called them (and creatures like them) 'flying things'. They flew over a nearby valley at the base of the mountains, perching somewhere hidden beyond the treeline. Laka spotted a plume of dust that was moving toward them; it was presumably coming up from the nearby valley.

The oldest of the dilophosaurs, Raak, looked over his shoulder. “Oh yeah, you wouldn't know yet. Haven’t finished your first year out here, right?” He briefly interrupted himself to tear off a small bit of red meat, chomping it between his next words. “Big migration every year in the valley.”

Laka crooked his head at him, eyes lighting with curiosity. "What migrates this time of year? Gotta be something tough if we’re not taking advantage of it."

Shaking his head idly, Raak sighed. He muttered to himself briefly. “What was it… Hat-oh something… no, that’s not quite…” With a grunt, he said “Hadrosaurs, I think they’re called. Pretty gamy. All muscle, not a lot fat.”

One of the other dilophosaurs, named Simak, looked up from his meal with a smug grin. “’Cept the little ones. Nice and tender. Easy catches, too. Hadrosaurs are all pretty slow. Get one that lags behind enough ‘n you can just -- youch! Hey, what was that for!?”

Raak had dealt him a heavy punch to the back of the head. While Simak rubbed the sore spot, Raak snapped severely at him. “Quit messing with him. He’ll get in bad trouble if he takes you too seriously.” Turning to a now somewhat startled Laka, he offered a stern warning. “Look. There’s a reason we don’t hunt those, especially during migration. The flying things try to pull it off ‘cuz they got wings. Doesn't matter how fast we are, we're still stuck to the ground. Can't get out of reach as fast as them."

“What? That sounds like coward talk to me!” Laka was indignant.

Raak let out a frustrated groan. He just wanted to eat. Laka was still at that age where he felt the need to prove himself and Raak was in no mood to deal with it today. “Use your brain. Hadrosaurs travel in a massive group. Five of them would be on us the instant we so much as sneeze in their direction. Not to mention they’re twice our size. Now how about you shuddup and let me eat?” The fourth dilophosaur, named Tarv, lifted a hand in the air and waved to something in the distance. “Hey, Jaggy! You’re late this year; going to watch the migration again?"

Strolling through the plains was a theropod, larger than the dilophosaurs. His body was of similar shape to theirs; bipedal and bird-like. His legs were large, lean, and well-toned, showing he was a creature built for speed and power. His scales were an earthy red color, and he had two small spikes jutting up from his brow above each eye. Most prominent was his large, boxy snout. He gave a small wave back. “Got tied up, just hoping I didn’t miss anything.”

Raak groaned. "Oh good, that freak is visiting again..." He said it to himself, mostly, but he did not really care if the other dilophosaurs heard.

Laka stared at the stranger briefly before turning to Raak. "... Who's that guy? And how come he's going to hunt those things if they're so dangerous?"

Letting out a growl, Raak’s patience was worn thin. He was hungry. He did not want to deal with more questions right now. He quickly came up with an excuse to get rid of Laka for a bit. “Why not go with him and see? I don’t know, it’ll be a learning experience or something. Now let me eat in peace.” He plunged his face into the guts of the game, chomping angrily.

Laka, emboldened by his elder’s command, hopped-to and sprinted toward the interloper. “Hey! You!” He shouted, doing his best to act confident.

Jaggy’s gaze followed Laka with idle curiosity. He stopped walking only when Laka came to a screeching halt in front of him.

The dilophosaur puffed out his chest and pointed up at him. "I'm going with you. I wanna know how you get away with hunting down those things."

Jaggy stared at him without expression. He crooked his head slightly, the only sign that he heard what Laka said. He did not seem particularly impressed with Laka's display of confidence.

It was at this moment Laka realized just how much smaller he was than the allosaurus. He was standing in the great beast’s shadow, just below half his height. He tried to keep his confident face up, but he instinctively started shrinking back and shifting uneasily. His eyes darted away briefly as he struggled to maintain eye contact. "I mean... uh... if you wouldn't mind that..."

Jaggy shrugged. “Sure.” With that, the allosaurus casually walked around Laka and resumed his path. His footsteps were heavy and loud, leaving noticeable indents in the earth with each step.

Slightly stunned and embarrassed, Laka watched as he walked off. He glanced over to his pack mates. They were too busy with their meal to pay him or Jaggy any mind.

Jaggy, without stopping, looked back over his shoulder. “You coming?” His voice was calm and friendly.

Laka’s muscles stiffened as he snapped back to reality. "R-right behind you!" he shouted, quickly following after Jaggy.

Once Laka caught up, Jaggy said “Haven’t met you yet. Seen you with Raak’s crew lately. What happened to Yark?”

The dilophosaur was taken aback. Was he really on such friendly terms he would know about other pack members? It was surreal hearing the names of his kindred spoken by an outsider like this. “Uh… Yark fell off a cliff. Broke his legs. Ain’t going anywhere for a while. I was supposed to join my own hunting pack next season but the boss told me to take Yark’s spot ‘till he’s better.”

Jaggy's brow furrowed. “Oh… I see.”

Yet another surprise. He did not say much, but Laka could see the sadness in his face. Who cared what happened to someone from a different herd? After a long silence, Laka cleared his throat. “I’m, uh, Laka, by the way.”

The allosaurs’s sad countenance vanished. He gave a friendly nod. “Jaggy.” He said.

Together they made their way to the valley.

The overlook to the valley had vivid green grass and was strewn with blue flowers. They swayed idly in the breeze, accompanied by scattered stalks of yellow grains. The base of a mountain range ascended in a steep slope to the bottom of the valley, forming it’s far wall. On the opposite end was a ledge, which curved down at a gentler angle. Jhe two walls met in the middle at a flat bottom. The ground there formed a thin path that snaked its way through the valley, through which flowed a gentle stream.

Grass covered the hills, and dozens of large moss-coated rocks jutted up at odd angles throughout the valley. Massive trees in the valley formed a canopy, covering much of the interior from view overhead. A gap between the trees gave a clear, if brief, view down to the bottom.

Flying things congregated in the treetops, and others stood vigil on the ledges either side of the valley. All, with eyes black as night, stared down into the uncovered part of the valley. At least until Jaggy and Laka arrived. The instant Jaggy's heavy footfalls could be heard, they stared toward the jungle. As the noise grew louder some flew to the far side of the valley, where the base of the mountains were. What few remained followed soon after when Jaggy burst through the foliage and came into view. His appearence made them scatter in a panic.

Jaggy stretched and took in the sights. He admired the blue flowers and stared for a few moments at the mountains. He was enamored by the way the golden sunbeams scattered across the mountain range, and the heavy contrast given by the cool shadows cast over the valley. It was a lovely sight. He walked to the ledge and stood, surveying the scene.

Laka, trotting after him, found his gaze immediately drawn to the flying things. There were dozens of them, each about as big as himself (not counting their enormous wing span), some even bigger. Their cold eyes sent a chill through his spine. He arched his back and bared his claws, ready to fight or flee as the situation demanded. He would have run already, but Jaggy’s presence made him slightly more confident.

Without looking at Laka, Jaggy said “Settle down. Makes ‘em feel tough if you act afraid.”

Laka’s face went slightly red. “I-I’m not afraid!” he insisted.

“Good,” Jaggy grinned, “Then act like it. Come on, relax. Smile. Take in the scenery. Act like you own the place.” With that, he took a deep breath and let out a satisfied sigh, sitting on the cool grass.

Laka did his best to relax, but he did not sit. “… What's the plan here, anyway?” Jaggy's demeanor was not that of a hunter. When the hadrosaurs came by, they would clearly see him sitting out in the open. There would be no way for him to get the drop on them.

With an idle chuckle Jaggy joked “Oh, I’m just bird watching. No need to be in a hurry, it would be a shame to waste a day as lovely as this.”

Before Laka could press him for a better answer, the hadrosaurs came into view. Just one at first. It slowly poked its head from under the safety of the foliage. All Laka could make out at first was it’s head, illuminated in the sun. It was long and flat across the top, and rounded at the front. The creature’s scales were a sandy brown color. It looked with some hesitation at the flying things, who returned his gaze with hungry stares. It looked to the other side of the valley, his eyes meeting Jaggy’s. After some hesitation, the hadrosaur retreated back to the shade.

Jaggy's eyes scanned the flying things as he mentally counted out how many there were. He counted six on the mountain’s ledges and an additional six along the treetops; twelve in total.

Laka watched as the hadrosaur disappeared into the shadows. He sat and crossed his arms. “They’re gonna have to come out at some point. When they do there’s not gonna be much they can do. The flying things’ll get their pick of the litter. Man… wish I had wings, it’d make hunting a lot easier.” His gaze wandered to Jaggy, who didn’t appear to be listening. “So what, you come out here just to watch the show or something? Heard you allosaurs are sadistic buggers…” Laka felt a tinge of guilt for saying this, but not enough to apologize. It wasn’t like he was any better. He had a hunter’s curiosity, wanting to see the flying things in action and learn how they hunt. Going over possibilities in his mind, he concluded they would likely be focusing solely on the infants. Easiest to pick up and carry away without a prolonged fight. He wondered if the hadrosaurs would even be able to defend themselves from an aerial attack like that.

Eventually, one of the hadrosaurs stepped out into the light. It was an adult male, the same one who peered out moments ago. He was shortly followed by one, then two, then several more of his kind. Their bodies were all squat, wide, and boxy, with large and heavy hind legs. Their arms, though smaller than their legs, were still powerful and tree-like. Their tails started at a wide base that tapered hastily to a point near the end. They walked on all fours, although clearly able to stand on two legs should the need arise. With blunt teeth and no claws, the only thing that looked somewhat threatening about them was their muscles and numbers.

Jaggy only glanced down at them for brief intervals; his eyes stayed on the flying things most of the time. “Pay attention, Laka. What do you notice about the flying things so far? I want to hear your assessment.”

Laka had nearly forgotten about them. He looked up and was surprised to see they hadn’t moved an inch. Their eyes were staring down at the mass of creatures ferrying below them, but they were sitting still on their perches. “Uh… well, they’re not doing anything.”

“And why do you suppose that is?”

Laka looked down, studying the hadrosaurs and their movements. “Looks like… well, it looks like only adult males are walking by right now. Lots of them so far.”

Jaggy cracked a grin and nodded. “That’s right. Hadrosaurs place their strongest males at the front and back of the herd to fend off more powerful threats. The rest of the herd is all mixed together. The formation works fine in most environments, but in a tight canyon like this it leaves the center more vulnerable."

Laka nodded. “So the flying things are waiting for the women and children, then?” “That’s right. Now look, there. What do you make of those ones?” He pointed out several flying things that were more lively than their compatriots. They were fidgeting and swaying, heads darting attentively across the herd as they bounced on their heels.

Grinning confidently, Laka said “Those must be the strongest of their hunters. They’ve got their wits about them and are ready to pounce right when the perfect moment comes.”

Jaggy shook his head and chuckled. “Those are the youngest and newest hunters. Look, see how the elder ones are sitting still? They’re calm, watching and conserving energy. They already know they’ll have to wait for the middle of the pack before they have a chance at snagging anything. No point wasting energy by bouncing around like that.” Laka slumped his shoulders, a bit disappointed in himself. “O-oh, I see…”

Patting him on the back, Jaggy said “Don’t be upset, now. Can’t learn anything new if you know everything already, right?”

Laka grunted and nodded. “I suppose.” He perked up and sat straight when he noticed smaller hadrosaurs come into view. The front ranks were nearly past, the females and the young now starting their trek through the open space. Males were still mixed in among them, but they were weaker than the men in front and back of the herd. He stood up and grinned with morbid excitement.

The females were only slightly smaller than the males, but enough that it was noticeable. Walking close to their mothers was the young; some were no bigger than their parent’s heads, others were grown to half the size of their elders. The older children appeared to be helping watch the young ones.

One of the younger flying things took off, then two more followed. They immediately started circling overhead, ready to swoop down at any moment. Jaggy, seeing this, calmly got to his feet and watched. His eyes stared with purpose at their flight pattern, then the herd to deduce if any hadrosaurs would look worth going for. Next he looked at the older flying things, still watching the hadrosaurs from their perches. He continued in this pattern over the course of several minutes.

Laka’s eyes were entirely on the herd. He felt he understood what was going on; Jaggy was competing with the flying things. Once one of the herd was vulnerable, there would be mere seconds to pounce on it before the flying things got to it first. The hadrosaurs would not know weather to focus on Jaggy or the pteradons, making a clean getaway more doable. He was excited at the idea. He took several steps forward, eager to jump into the fray, himself.

Jaggy grabbed him by the tail and dragged him back up to the ledge, like a father corralling his child. He spoke with a gentle but firm tone, a teacher kindly correcting his student’s behavior. "Don’t get jumpy. Keep your eyes on the flying things. You just watch and learn, got it?” Laka swallowed, feeling somewhat intimidated despite Jaggy’s tone. He realized he was acting just like the young, overly eager flying things. Heeding Jaggy’s advice, he turned his attention to them rather than the herd, making himself content to simply watch events unfold.

It was strange to watch them circle. The hadrosaurs below were growing noticeably nervous as they passed by, many attempting to quicken their pace. Those who rushed were only halted when they found themselves unable to get past the mass of their kindred ahead of them.

Jaggy’s muscles tensed when his eyes fell upon an infant hadrosaur atop its mother’s back. It awkwardly slipped and fell, crying as it landed. The mother turned around to pick up her child, but this small window of time was the perfect opportunity to attack. Finally the tension broke, one of the pterodons dove! It bared it’s claws, dark eyes locked on its prey.

Laka's gaze followed it's flight path, quickly locating it's target. He wanted to lunge into the action, but heeded Jaggy’s words, managing to hold himself back to let the allosaur work. Laka couldn’t fathom what Jaggy planned at this juncture; with his mass, it was hard to imagine he could run fast enough to intercept the prey before the pterodon got to it first. How could Jaggy possibly catch the hadrosaur in time? Simply put: he didn’t. Before Laka knew what was happening, Jaggy kicked hard against the earth and bounded into the sky. The force of his jump sent pebbles flying and left a small dent in the ground where he once stood.

Laka’s jaw dropped as he watched the allosaur leap through the air. It was unheard of for a beast of this size to be so dextrous, he would not have believed it if he didn’t see it with his own eyes. Laka could only watch in shock and confusion as the giant hunter soared overhead, one clawed foot extended toward the pterodon.

The flying thing barreled toward it’s prey. It was risky to aim for one so close to it’s mother, but she would not be able to react in time, anyway. “The first kill”, he thought, “I’ll be getting the first kill today!” This was the last thought to cross his mind before Jaggy crashed into him mid-air, expertly striking the pterodon with his foot. It was a merciful death, so quick he didn’t even notice that three-thousand pounds of muscle and sinew had careened into the side of his body.

Jaggy’s momentum carried both of them towards the valley wall. The allosaur landed with his full weight on the creature, and the earth shook with a mighty crash. Nearby hadrosaurs scattered in fright. Without pausing, Jaggy used his momentum to carry another jump, this time lunging for one of the pterodons that still circled overhead.

Unlike it’s companion, this flying thing had time to react. Jaggy was soaring toward him with his jaw’s parted, hundreds of vicious points seeking him out. The pteradon tried to fly higher, get out of reach, but he wasn’t fast enough. The allosaur’s powerful jaws closed around him like a vice, forever ending his time in the sky. Jaggy fell to the earth once more, shaking the ground and creating a large plume of dust.

The final pterodon was frozen with shock. He stared at the dust cloud below, trying to decide if what he saw was real. Had shock not overidden his instincts, he would have the good sense to flee. Unfortunately for him these few seconds of fear stole his only chance to escape. He was snapped back into reality when he saw his companion emerge from the cloud and careen toward him. His companion was not flying away, however; the allosaur had thrown him. The two collided in the air. The last living member of the trio was knocked to the earth, his life ending atop the rocks below.

As the dust settled, Jaggy stood amid the clearing breathing heavily. The hadrosaurs stared with fright at him. Mothers pulled their children close, fathers and brothers stepped forward to defend them. If he turned on them next, however, they knew they would be helpless to stop him. He briefly scanned the ridge overhead. The remaining flying things had not moved from their perches, all eyes fixed on him. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly, turning his attention to his slain quarry. Acting as though the remaining pterodons were not a threat worth watching, he calmly collected each slain flying thing and placed it on his back. With all three in tow he walked back up the slope, tossing the pile of winged meat to the side before returning to his seat beside Laka.

He gave one final look at the flying things. Silent. Expressionless. Without words he communicated with them, told them that the next one to circle would join the meat pile beside him.

There was a heavy silence before things got moving again. One of the hadrosaur men on the safe side of the clearing let out a low, trumpeting noise. It stirred everyone to their senses. One mother finally dared to cross the clearing, keeping her children close. She glanced between the perched flying things and Jaggy as she made her way across, fearful for any movement. The pterodon’s heads followed her movements, but they did not budge. Another hadrosaur followed, then another, until the whole herd was moving again.

Jaggy did not look down at them. His gaze stayed fixed firmly on the flying things. Without looking down at Laka he said “You’re staring.”

Laka didn’t even notice, but he had indeed been staring at Jaggy. He closed his mouth and turned his eyes to the scene before him. There was a lot he wanted to ask. Of the hundred things swirling in his head, the only one that managed to come out was “Are you crazy? All that extra effort just for a few flying things… there’s hardly any meat on their bones!”

Jaggy shrugged and grunted apathetically. This was his only response.

“Why not get a hadrosaur, though? I mean, you had a chance to, and --” Jaggy finally turned to look at Laka. The movement was not threatening, but it made the dilophosaur jump a bit. Jaggy’s gaze hadn’t moved from the flying things until now. He had the slight hint of a smile on his face. “Everyone’s got different preferences. Maybe I just like the way they taste? Besides, it’s a shame to let meat go to waste – even if it isn’t your favorite.”

Laka could tell Jaggy was lying. He didn’t know how he knew, but he could feel it in his gut. Before he could contemplate weather it was worth it to attempt pressing the matter, a small voice rose from the valley.

“Jaggy? Jaggy, that is you! I knew you’d be here!” It was a young hadrosaur. She broke from her herd and ran up the hill with a massive grin on her face.

Laka stood, hunched his back, and barred his claws. His hunter’s instincts took over. He was not considering that the thing running towards them knew Jaggy by name. He merely registered something moving toward them, and that usually meant a fight. Better, it might mean meat.

Jaggy noticed this and immediately lifted his tail in front of Laka to block him from trying anything. He called out to the young hadrosaur with a friendly tone. “Where's your mother?”

The hadrosaur’s smile gave way to surprise when she noticed Laka. She took a few hesitant steps back. "O-oh, uh... she was further ahead with my brother. I got separated."

Jaggy gave Laka a glance, wordlessly warning him not to try anything. He then looked back at the hadrosaur. "Better catch up with her. She'll be worried sick."

Dissapointment washed over the young hadrosaur. After hesitating a few moments she turned to rejoin her heard, but paused briefly and looked over her shoulder. “It’s just… it’s good to see you again. Thank you for helping us. I’m sorry everyone’s still scared of you.” With that, she walked down the embankment and vanished into the crowd. Those who saw this interaction stared at her with bewilderment and concern.

Laka stared in stunned silence, processing what just happened. A plant eater openly chatting with a meat eater? It was unheard of. Plant eaters and meat eaters didn’t speak to one another. It made no sense. Didn’t she realize what Jaggy was? He dearly wanted to ask him about it, but couldn’t find the words.

Thankfully he did not need to as Jaggy sensed his confusion. “I get it. An easy meal just tried to walk straight up to me. Coulda ate good tonight. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not like I wouldn’t eat a hadrosaur or something. But some of these ones are... family.” He glanced at the bewildered Laka sheepishly. "It's... hard to explain. Long story. I doubt you have time for it right now."

Laka stared at Jaggy for a time. He did not know what more he could say. Eventually the two returned their gaze to the hadrosaurs and watched in silence.

As the last hadrosaurs vanished into the canopy, Jaggy hefted himself up. The remaining flying things had left some time ago, the elders leaving long before the younger ones. They gave up on hunting some time ago with Jaggy keeping watch. "I'm gonna head home.” He piled two of the flying things on his back. “You can have that last one. My treat” He said, turning to leave.

Laka stared down at the dead pterodon. He sneered, disgusted. “What? Raak’ll be annoyed if I bring back one of those.”

Jaggy was already walking away. He looked back over his shoulder, not stopping. “Yep. But he’ll be angrier if you come back with nothing.” He vanished into the treeline without another word. The heavy thump of his footsteps slowly faded.

Raka stared at the flying thing. Pathetic. Hardly any meat at all, he thought.

Raak and the others were in the process of dragging their kill through the plains when Laka caught up to them. They ate some of the jucy parts of the massive creature already, but the rest would be for the herd back home. The task of dragging the huge beast was difficult, but not impossible for seasoned hunters.

Raak looked up, dropping the creature’s tail from his mouth. “There you are! How'd it go?” His eyes narrowed, fixed on the flying thing that Laka was carrying on his back. He did not give Laka a chance to reply. “Seriously? You don’t expect us to eat that, do you?”

Laka shuffled nervously and looked down, fidgeting with his claws. “Uh… well… I suppose…” he gulped and worked up the nerve to look Raak in the eyes. “I-it’s a shame to let meat go to waste... ?”

Raak stared at him with a slight scowel. “Whatever… just toss it on top of the giant and help us drag this thing home.”

Laka was surprised Raak didn’t push back more. He expected him to make him leave the pterodon behind.

As Laka placed the pterodon atop the larger kill, Raak apathetically remarked “So, learn anything new?”

Laka thought very carefully about what to say. He considered what he learned about hadrosaur pack formations or the way flying things hunt. Then he considered how Raak was still in a bad mood. He looked over his shoulder and grunted. “Well… I guess I learned that Jaggy guy is a freak.” He was a bit worried he may have said the wrong thing when Raak stared quietly at him for several seconds without saying anything.

Raak broke the tension with an approving chuckle. He gave Laka a firm smack on the back. “Well. Grab a leg. Let’s get home.”

Laka grinned, happy to have gotten some small approval from Raak. All things considered, Laka felt like he learned a lot. But Raak probably knew all of it already; he was a well-seasoned hunter many years his senior. Raak did not need a hunting lesson from his inferior. The one thing Laka could not wrap his head around was how Jaggy could call plant eaters ‘family’. Stranger still how a plant eater was so eager to approach him; such a thing was completely unheard of. There was a story behind it that he was yet to hear, and he was surprised to find himself wanting to speak to Jaggy again someday. Perhaps he could ask him next time. If there was a next time.

The End.

-------------------------------- Author's note: This is the first of several planned stories (the second is mostly finished, will upload soon!) As a personal thing I always like to pair my stories with different songs. I like to think of it as an "end credits theme." For this one I chose it's namesake, "Hard to Explain", by the Strokes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkS1TJcXUm4 I've also posted more of my literature on DeviantArt, you can find my full library there! https://www.deviantart.com/boredkaiju/gallery/74673699/literature I'll be posting an index with links to each story in this series as it goes on, as well, once the second story is up. :)

[animeengineer]

Windows folks acting like 95 was the origin of proper UI (to be fair, the whole point of Windows 95 was Microsoft “inventing” a bunch of features Macs and others had for years) (there still isn’t a good justification for the registry) and completely ignoring Apple Computer’s Human Interface Guidelines from the decade before:

It even covered the Apple IIgs, which tried to be a bridge between the Apple II of the 1970s and the Mac. It covered a lot of the same ground that the Windows guidelines did, and even went farther in ways we’d appreciate today.

They patiently explained why you shouldn’t color buttons like green for OK and red for Cancel, because sometimes Cancel was the less dangerous option and you didn’t want to train the user to reflexively click green buttons and wipe their disk.

And, contradictory to Microsoft, they explained that icons should represent nouns, maybe adjectives, but never verbs. (Verbs should be commands, which are menu items.) Which helped Macs resist the urge to turn all commands into toolbar buttons and clutter the screen. And which would have avoided the modern silliness of having a “save” icon that is an object which has been out of use for decades. And avoids internationalization problems like “arrow left is undo, arrow right is redo” which is counterintuitive for cultures which read right to left, or top to bottom.

(And the reason we have the menu bar at the top of the screen instead of in the window is to keep you from needing to figure out which window’s the active one, not waste the menu bar’s worth of space in every window, let the menus use the full screen width and not just the window’s, remove the need for at least one window to exist for the program to run, and remove the need for (document) windows within (program) windows, which makes it much harder to interact with different programs simultaneously.)

As for resizing windows, the Mac originally only let you do that with the 16x16pixel resize widget in the bottom-right corner of the window, nestled between the ends of the vertical and horizontal scroll bars. Moving the window was only via dragging the title bar. The resize-from-any-edge concept showed up in Windows before it moved to Mac; the idea was to let you resize the window if the bottom right corner happened to be off screen. Up until then the window edges did nothing.

Anyway, the main motivation to making the UI hide all its elements as much as possible? “Cleanliness,” or the idea that you didn’t watch TV or look at photos with a bunch of widgets all over the place, so you shouldn’t have scroll bars visible when you’re watching a movie on your computer. Then the idea migrated to other apps and the OS itself. They’re all at least partly responsible for the current mess.

One small but extremely annoying effect of Tech Modernization or w/e is how UI contrast is garbage anymore, especially just, like, application windows in general.

"Ooh our scrollbar expands when you mouse over it! Or does it? Only you can know by sitting there like an idiot for 3 seconds waiting for it to expand, only to move your cursor away just as it does so!" or Discord's even more excellent "scrollbar is 2 shades off of the background color and is one (1) pixel wide" fuck OFF

I tried to move a system window around yesterday and had to click 3 times before I got the half of the upper bar that let me drag it. Why are there two separate bars with absolutely nothing to visually differentiate them on that.

"Well if you look closely-" I should not!! have to squint!!! at the screen for a minute straight to detect basic UI elements!! Not mention how ableist this shit is, and for what? ~✨Aesthetic✨~?

and then every website and app imitates this but in different ways so everything is consistently dogshit to try to use but not always in ways you can immediately grok it's!!!! terrible!!!! just put lines on things again I'm begging you!!!!

[hismercytomyjustice]

I am exactly two days away from deciding whether or not to cut off all of my hair again.

Right now it’s maybe 1-2” past my shoulders and has been hovering there for several years now. This is pretty much the longest my hair has ever been.

I only managed to grow it out this far in the first place after making my stylist at the time promise to refuse to let me cut it all off again before my wedding back in 2019 lol. She took that vow very seriously to the point of swearing other stylists into our pact when she became unavailable.

I’ve been toying with the idea of going back to a pixie cut for a while. I’ve had an undercut for a few years now (thank god because I would’ve cut it all off my damn self otherwise).

I got out of the shower the other day and my hair was brushing across my shoulders and the sheer feeling of “abso-fucking-lutely not” hit me like a ton of bricks.

I also live in the south and it is gonna be hot and humid and miserable until at least October/November and I am feeling weak.

I have a love hate relationship with my hair. It took me pretty much my entire lifetime to find products that didn’t leave me looking like I stuck my finger in an outlet. I have 3a curly hair that is extremely prone to frizz, especially in this ever-present humidity. I’ve always been self-conscious about my hair because of negative comments other people have made. Probably can throw a dash of gender dysphoria in there too! Yay!

Tho my hair is probably also the reason I got mistaken for a guy a lot back as a teenager/young adult. Which always confused me but not in a terrible way. Most girls my age straightened their hair while guys had their hair on the longer side and not straightened.

I didn’t realize all the super uncomfortable and awkward feelings I was having about stuff like my hair and womanhood were gender dysphoria until I was much older. I struggled so much with femininity because I always felt like I was badly faking it and surely everyone knew I was faking it. Everyone had to know something was not right, didn’t they?

I didn’t even know there was a word for “not a boy but also not a girl” until maybe 2017/2018ish? I’m glad I found out then because getting married as a female presenting southerner was wildly fraught with gender panic.

I was became jealous of Haruhi from Ouran High School Host Club in my late teens/early twenties because she didn’t give two shits if someone thought she was a boy or a girl and also unapologetically gravitated toward more masculine presentation. I was very much of the “must be nice” mindset without understanding why until embarrassingly later.

That’s actually why I gravitate toward her when selecting profile icons, even if I run the risk of coming across as an “anime profile picture” deviant. Tho idk if that’s as much of a thing on tumblr? I am old and out of touch after migrating to Twitter for almost a decade and back again. I don’t even remember what my original tumblr handle was. I’m pretty sure the one I have listed on my older works on ao3 wasn’t my first. But I digress.

I realized there was something “wrong” with my sexuality around the same time as I realized it with my gender. I was comfortable enough with the label bi/pan (didn’t realize this until college) but I also couldn’t figure out if I was ace. Turns out there was a word to describe that too! Demisexual! So gray ace, heavy on the ace!

I’m incredibly grateful to all the folks out there who have shared their own experiences with gender and sexuality and have broadened my vocabulary and understanding in that regard. It’s such an utter relief to know you’re not “wrong” or “weird” and that there are other people out there like you who feel the same way. The trans community in particular has been a godsend on this fronts.

I waffle back and forth over whether or not I fit under the trans umbrella. I know a lot of nonbinary folks do and I don’t mind stepping under it if someone offers it to me, but I also don’t know if I feel confident enough to use the label for myself. Confident as in “am I nonbinary enough to be considered trans,” which is definitely a personal thing on my part and also an OCD spiral slide that’s trying to trick me into jumping on.

Who knows!

Plus all the super fun “now I know I’m neurodivergent but am I autistic” stuff I’ve been going through the past year or two. I got a *big shrug* on that front when I was formally tested a few months ago. My therapist (who specializes in OCD and not in autism) says she’s pretty confident I am. So did the woman who gave me the adhd/autism assessment, tho she didn’t get the final say in my actual diagnosis. I’m pretty confident I would’ve gotten it if she had.

The issue is that, while autistic traits seem to be hardcore showing up in my work life, they aren’t as obvious elsewhere. This may very well be because my current job is the only fully virtual job I’ve ever had and wow it’s hard to interpret social cues and whatnot when everyone is virtual!

I’ve been at my current job just shy of 2 years now and I’ve met my coworkers in person exactly one time at a big org wide event in New Orleans last year. We’re actually scheduled to all meet in person again in June, this time just the 17 of us that roll up to our director (instead of the ~1k or so people in our greater org). We’re gonna be in NYC too.

I’m wildly exhausted just thinking about it! 💀

This post also got super out of hand, but it is what it is. Yay, feelings!

[burnwater13]

Grogu looked at those stormtroopers waiting around and thought about time. All the time people spent doing things that weren’t always the things they wanted to do. Waiting was right up there near the top of his list. There wasn’t a lot of fun involved in waiting, unless you were day dreaming too. Then, technically you were day dreaming and just happened to fit that into an otherwise busy schedule.

When he thought about time he thought about how unreliable it was. Sometimes it moved very fast, like meal time where the food just seemed to disappear and he was hungry again almost instantly. Then there was the time he had to wait for the Mandalorian to finish using the privy or the ‘fresher and uff, could time move more slowly? Grogu was pretty sure that it couldn’t. 

He didn’t understand why time behaved like that. On a chronometer it just tick, tick, ticked away, all even and the same. But he was sure that the chrono was broken anytime he was watching Diggle and Daggle, the Fish that fish, because those episodes went by so fast he was always ready to download the next one, even if his dad, the Mandalorian, said they’d watched enough. How was that even possible? He hadn’t finished the thirty five year marathon yet!

That’s right, his favorite entertainment, other than watching the Mandalorian huff at people who do things in the wrong sequence, had been running for thirty five years! That was a long time no matter how the chrono worked. It stretched back before the Clone Wars started! Those two fish saw the Republic fall, the Empire rise, the Empire fall, and the New Republic replace it. That was a lot of history to live through!

Sure Grogu, and almost everyone he knew today, had done the same thing. Somehow it was just more special to him that Diggle and Daggle had managed to outlast all the folks who were creating chaos and were still there to entertain everyone else with their fascinating and informative show about fishing across the galaxy. 

He knew that his dad also liked the show, but for very different reasons. He paid more attention to the star ports and landing fields they passed through and how they managed to work with the local authorities to record their shows, sometimes even on planets that had been interdicted! 

Sometimes, Grogu caught Din watching old episodes when he was doing research about a particular planet they were supposed to visit. He tried not to laugh too loud or breathe down the Mandalorian’s neck trying to watch from over his shoulder. It’s not like his dad could feel his breath. The cape thing he was always wearing blocked that from happening, but the bounty hunter said he could sense it, none the less. A lot like how scale fish sensed nets in the water and avoided them. If you wanted scale fish for dinner, everyone of the seven varieties were tasty, then you had to use a hook and line. 

Grogu wondered if scale fish felt the same way about time as he did. Sometimes it went to fast, like when they when they migrating to their spawning grounds far away from any Gungan village and sometimes it went too slow, like when Daggle had so much trouble taking the one he caught off his line because the sunshine was just too bright that day on Naboo. It’s very hard for Daggle to wear protective lenses. Normally he just wears a hat, but Diggle had borrowed it since he was operating the boat. 

He knew the Mandalorian felt the same way about time being unreliable. He just complained about different events. It took a lot of time to clean Grogu’s coverall and no time for it to get dirty again. Grogu assured him that it took just as much time to get it dirty as it took to get clean, but he knew the Mandalorian didn’t believe him. 

Din Djarin also worried about how quickly Grogu was growing up and that one day he’d move out of their cabin on Nevarro and do all his adventuring without his dad. Grogu had laughed at that thought. No way was he leaving Din Djarin behind when he went on adventures. That would be like Diggle leaving Daggle behind. Not just unthinkable. Impossible. No way was the Force er… love going to let that happen. He just wouldn’t give it the time.

[7serendipities]

Dryads and Wood-Wives: A Question of Categorization

I got an interesting question on tumblr last week, and while I’m not going to copy the entire thing over here, nor my entire rambling response, I thought it brought up two important worldview questions that might illuminate my practice a bit for ya’ll, and may help out others who are new to walking the path of a fairy witch.

The first question was, basically: is a Germanic wood-wife the same thing as a Greek dryad? Are these just two names for the same exact thing? On the surface, it does sort of seem that way; they’re described in very similar terms. But one of the trickiest things about the realms of Fairy (and one that I think is the hardest for people to wrap their heads around) is that we can’t cleanly separate fairies into specific species. There’s a lot of evidence in the Scottish Witch Trial manuscripts that the difference between a devil and an imp and a fairy and an elf was pretty much a difference of attitude, and that the same being might be called two or more of these terms even by the same person.(1) And there’s plenty of folkloric evidence that these beings can change their appearance, or at least deceive our senses. So we just can’t quantify and identify them as we do with animals and plants, and just because they seem similar doesn’t necessarily mean they are the same.

On top of that, we have to add the complexities of culture - both ours and theirs. I think it’s reasonable to say that some of the Fair Folk seem to have a sort of symbiotic relationship with nearby humans, to the point that there’s some cultural bleed between the two groups.(2) So it would make sense to me that the dryads would have more Greek sensibilities and prefer offerings of common Greek foodstuffs, whereas wood-wives would have more Germanic sensibilities and prefer more common Germanic foodstuffs - and that seems to be born out in the folklore about what to offer and how to give it. So it doesn’t make sense to me to try and force a pattern on that - there’s no way to reduce them all, to the point where you can say “all feminine forest spirits should be offered [some kind of food]”. I think it’s better to just not worry about whether wood-wives and dryads are the same “species” and instead of highlighting the similarities, learn about the differences, so that you don’t accidentally offend anyone.(3) When I encounter new beings in the landscape, either Over Here, or Over There, as I’m going about my business, one of the things I ask is what they call themselves - not their Name or even name, but what type of a being they want me to know them as. They are usually willing to either show or tell me enough that I can at least figure out what paradigm will work best in my interactions with them, and I then move forward treating them as the folklore surrounding that being suggests that I should.(4)

That brings me to the second question: do fairy beings travel to places other than where their original folklore is from? I think they do. I think it would be strange to think that only humans travel across our world, when plants and animals have done their best to migrate (with and without our help) as well. I also think that the symbiosis I spoke about in the last section plays a roll, but this time on a more macro scale. I’ve heard stories of brownies and nisser traveling with their families on boats to the Americas, and there are stories of fairy beings being “chased out” of certain areas (often by Christian priests). I don’t think it’s a stretch to think that some of them might’ve come that way to the Americas or Australia or wherever. Personally, I’ve met a lot of fairy beings who, when I ask them what type of being they are, identify themselves as something from European folklore. Near where I live, it’s been mainly beings known from Celtic or British or Germanic cultural folklore, and I think that makes sense given the colonial history of this area. (I’ve met some indigenous otherworldly beings as well, but they’re usually fairly shy, and so far none of them are specifically symbiotic to the indigenous cultures of that side of my family, but I’m nowhere near the traditional homelands, either.) I wouldn’t be super surprised, either, to find beings from Central American or Islamic or Korean folklore nearby, either, considering the current demographics of the area, but I also can’t say that I would necessarily recognize them if I did, as I’m not as well versed in those. Generally though, I think it’s not impossible to find beings from any culture that is currently represented in your area or has ever lived there, because these beings are usually believed to be both powerful and long-lived, and it’s therefore a good idea to just learn as much as you can about anyone you might encounter.

When I ask fairy-like otherworldly beings(5) what kind of a being they are, I’m not looking to categorize them, to check them off in a field guide, or to decide what “species” they belong to - I’m trying to gain context. How they present themselves tells me a little about their expectations, their likes and dislikes, and their sensibilities. And then I’ll use that information, and offer Dryads clean water, diluted wine, and olive oil, and offer wood-wives bread or other things made of grain, and perhaps a bit of milk. I’m a witch looking to create relationships, not a scientist trying to answer questions that might just be unanswerable.

See Emma Wilby’s Cunningfolk and Familiar Spirits (Sussex Academic Press, 2005), and Seo Helrune (www.seohelrune.com) has talked about the same in the Nordic sphere, with alfe vs jotnar, in some of their classes.

“Symbiotic” here not necessarily meaning “mutualistic” (benefitting both parties) on a micro scale. I think it’s likely that it’s mutualistic on a macro scale of our two populations, but on a micro scale yeah some humans definitely get fucked over, more along the lines of commensalism or straight-up predation.

Really, learning as much as you can in order to avoid giving accidental offence is probably my #1 Fairy Witchcraft rule.

To an extent: there’s plenty of folklore that says “don’t ever fucking talk to these omg just leave quickly and pretend you didn’t see them”. That’s fairly wise for those wishing not to end up in deep water with the Fair Folk but as I’m already fully submerged, I don’t always look away - I trust that my bargains and roles and allies will keep me safe in most normal situations, and I don’t try to mess around with things above my pay grade. A lot of my discernment has been just figuring out what is and is not within my pay grade, and while I might not rush inside and barricade the door if I see a kelpie, I’m not likely to touch it or try to banish it, either. To quote Morgan Daimler, “I like my liver on the inside.”

There’s some disagreement about whether “fairy” includes non-European folkloric otherworldly beings, and more about whether it should, so just to be clear, when I use “fairy” I do mean it in the more general “folkloric otherworldly being” sense. But I try to use “fairy-like” when I’m explicitly talking about non-European folkloric otherworldly beings, out of respect for people in their source cultures who might not feel like the word “fairy” is appropriate. Some of that, I find, is because of a misunderstanding of what a “fairy” is, based on popculture, though - I had a long discussion with a Persian friend about fairies and djinn where at the end we basically decided both terms covered the same basic category, but she originally had thought all fairies were small Tinkerbell types which did not seem at all like her understanding of djinn!

[thenamesblurrito]

eleven whole ask dumps

that’s a LOT! topics this time are: survivalists, cavemen, survival tv shows, Bloodron, plantformers, food storage, eating underwater, beast mode mouths, Rodimus and Abominus and flammability, and Rock Lords

as a matter of fact yes! it’s sort of difficult, because it’s a labor intensive process to mine, purify, distill, and store enough energon and other foodstuffs all by yourself unless your alt mode is like an energon refinery or something. so it isn’t a quick and easy solution for just anybody who has issues with the current regime. as it stands, it’s genuinely easier and safer for many junkers to hang around in the city than it is to rough it in the wilds, otherwise they’d be gone in a heartbeat.

but!

there’s certainly been folks who prefer roughing it to living in civilization. this has been true throughout history and isn’t specifically driven by the corruption of the Stratocracy. a popular counterculture in Kup’s youth was spelunkers/squatters who would specifically seek out old buried ruins and underground places to live in, like cavemen if you will, just because they could. there are antisocial folks and hermits and extreme introverts who would rather homestead than deal with anyone in their vicinity. there’s one crazy kook of a dedicated scientist in particular that i am still waffling about actually showing in SNAP’s storyline, but old gramma Glyph is definitely still kicking somewhere in the Forbidden Zone and has been since before size classes became a thing! she would absolutely fill the role this ask describes (not the same Glyph as the JAAT student, mind you, it’s just another common name)

there are still people who live in caves. no, not the folks i mentioned in the above answer, i mean like there are entire underground cities and everything. there’s a lot of stuff down there anyway! living underground is not unusual on Cybertron and a good percentage of infrastructure and industry isn’t even visible from the surface in some places

that said, there is archaeological evidence that the original Cybertronian civilizations actually developed below ground and migrated upward/outward! First City, a set of ruins swallowed by the Rust Sea, is the aptly named earliest appearance of a proper settlement aboveground, but it shows evidence of being a base camp before a proper city, and contains artifacts and materials thought to have been taken from belowground before being put in the city. the entire concept of Simfur was of a holy temple city that was already supposed to be underground before some great cataclysm sundered it so far beneath the surface that not even its original inhabitants could find it. so “cavepeople” were, in a way, the default from which mecha have branched out from to live on the surface

and re: eating mechanimals, that’s definitely a (relatively) recent cultural value, and it isn’t even universal. there’s been people eating mechanimals throughout history, and likewise there have been people squeamish and disapproving about it for just as long. the current social climate is disapproving, but that’s variable depending on when and where you look into history

fsdfhgljfsdghfk yknow what sure. on Carcer and Eukaris specifically because these are the cultures i think would be into that. the more widespread popular version of this is probably space travel survival instead of on-planet wilderness. like can you pilot a ship for a vorn with limited supplies out into the black and make it to your destination with minimal contact kind of challenge. not unlike those solo sailing challenges i suppose

okay so this was a joke ask from Jensen that has now fleshed out a piece of SNAP history thanks

Bloodron was a tyrant of Caminus during the Prime Wars who took over after the murder of the previous de facto Camien leaders, Solus Prime’s children Magnum and Pyra (the original Magnus and Mistress of Flame, respectively). he was successful where other conquerors had not been in part because of his ruthless execution of the original usurpers who murdered the twins, instead of trying to pander and please. while his methods were cruel, he was debatably the safest option for leadership at the time and was instrumental in putting down further unrest on the colony as even Cybertron was swallowed by chaos. he and his enemy/conjunx/??? Convoy (a name at this point, not yet a fancy title) worked together to thwart scheming insurrectionists vying for power amongst their familial and political blocs, which resulted in a mostly unified culture for Caminus many centuries later and gave them a legacy of being a very strong, put-together colony. the academic community remembers him and his period of history with mixed feelings. while what he did for Caminus was pretty good, all things considered, he was not exactly a good person himself

excellent questions!! i think the only plantformer i’ve got in my cast list atm is Botanica so i won’t have a lot of examples here. unlike beastformers looking like mechanimals, not a lot of plantformers actually take after a specific species of cyberflora. most seem to generate their own unique specimen, although in root mode many of them are quintoid frametypes

since cyberflora grow out of/need to be rooted to some kind of hotspots, plantformers often have very strong sparks, or at least a very high degree of energy cycling, and act as their own personalized hotspot. this gives them quicker and better than average healing, but it does mean they have a higher metabolism. some of them have alt modes that can process energon and/or package it. these are considered “fruit bearing” cyberflora alt modes, and are often given fuel processing functions much like vending machine, distillery, or refinery alt mode. this is really the only kind of food you’ll get from a plantformer, even though actual cyberflora are used for food in many many more ways than just energon fruit. most plantformer alt mode products won’t be eaten and are instead used in their function’s industry, or perhaps as a rare and expensive knick-knack in the same vein as some kind of handmade collector’s item

their mobility isn’t usually very high, in keeping with how most cyberflora function. filling a niche in the ecosystem may look like sifting metal, crystallizing minerals, conducting and rerouting electricity, or another small but significant part of planetary upkeep. as such, the majority of plantformers have alt modes designed to slot into a given environment where they can participate in the ecosystem, often moving only at the whims of their environment. a heavily cabled transmission tower tree meant to fit in amongst buzzing mangroves will have flexible bases and strong grounding roots as it connects to other trees with its cables. a lone lightning rod pine out on the prairie will have similar grounding roots that go even deeper and broader, meant to conduct lightning all the way to a planetary leyline, and windmill sequoias have perhaps the sturdiest, broadest trunks to brace their height against the movement of their milling boughs. on the opposite end of the spectrum, tangled cable tumbleweeds can unplug at any moment and be set adrift to seek out any new crevice or cranny to worm its wires into. it really depends on the plantformer’s individual alt mode. Botanica has root cabling to keep her steady when in alt mode, but her leaves and boughs are still mobile

this actually has less to do with stuff like mold or sour milk and more to do with expiring chemicals, decaying materials, and loss of charge. the point of energon is how it inherently carries a charge instead of just being burnt for power, but if you leave energon or batteries or what have you for too long, it’ll lose that charge. maybe it can be recharged, but you’ve lost an important part of your fuel just from waiting too long. undercharged energon is better than nothing, but it won’t fix your lethargy. expired chemicals can either be inert and useless or highly flammable/explosive/dangerous in some way depending on what it is and what kind of reaction it had over time. you don’t really wanna raid the pantry and pick up something that explodes in your hand because it expired a month ago. and decay isn’t always bad, with stuff like steel woolies turning into rust bunnies, but if you’re need an iron meal and instead find just a hunk of corroded rusty junk, that’s not gonna meet your nutritional needs. proper food storage is about minimizing corrosion and decay, preserving or restoring charge, and preventing adverse chemical reactions when possible, as well as keeping out pests like scraplets

that said, i think edible-grade energon can retain its charge for... at least a good while? it’ll longer than a month and still be a full meal, i’d say, if it’s just straight liquid energon on a regular charge. that’s why it’s kept in glass despite its delicacy, since glass isn’t a good conductor. so community pantries, dead drops, hideyholes and such are all fairly effective as long as everyone remembers to keep the spaces pretty clean and make sure nothing gets left too long, which is never a problem

ummmm.... hm. this is an off the wall question. i guess i think it would be weird and difficult. like, could you eat underwater?? could you take a bite of like i dunno what’s something that doesn’t instantly fall apart in water..... a candy cane? could you safely eat a candy cane underwater? probably yes if you were very careful to keep your throat closed and also try to force out all the water in your mouth before chewing and swallowing, but it would be hard. mecha aren’t in danger of choking/drowning like humans, and it’s safe to assume that if they’re already underwater then they probably have the seals for it, but still consuming a lot of water isn’t great for a mechanical species, and it’s not easy to make sure you’re not swallowing that along with your food

oh sure, like they’re perfectly functional mouths and all, the issue is just the connection to the fuel systems. no throat, as it were. whereas the folks who can eat in beast modes essentially have two esophagi that rearrange depending on what mode they’re in. for folks like Strafe who have intact beast heads in root mode, it’s possible they can use their jaw? like she in particular uses them as a second set of unwieldy hands, but a pocket is a good idea too, or a can opener, etc etc. chewing food just to spit it back out is probably something only a very determined person with a specific food craving is going to do, because most folks who aren’t able to chew would just get silted shakes to sip with a straw

oh all the time. Rodimus’s whole THING is setting himself on fire and just throwing himself into the fray. like that one Denethor scene in LOTR but madly cackling. he only bothers showing some finesse when around Drift who he wants to impress clearly requires more careful application of skill to beat. Abominus can’t set himself on fire like Rodimus can, but he can shoot flames from his beast head and will fan them higher with his wings, which means he can essentially generate a firestorm to stand in if necessary that will drive everyone else away. Elita 5 has some immunity to flame too as a pyrokinetic hero, but is in fact still vulnerable to heat unlike the other two. she won’t get scorched, but she does need to watch her temperature

in general mecha aren’t like extremely flammable, they have much much higher heat contact tolerance than humans, but ironically have lower atmospheric heat tolerance, because the majority of them use air cycling for cooling systems and so hot weather makes them overheat easily. buncha pansy computers. but they’ll think nothing of holding an open flame, picking up embers right from a fire, ducking through a burning doorway, setting off firecrackers in their hands, etc. their caution is more about smoke and soot clogging vents, or discolored paint, or getting dents from small explosions than actually burning. they start endangering themselves when the heat gets high enough to overtake their cooling systems or melt their kibble, or has enough force to punch like in an explosion, but even then they can struggle through until actual vital internal components are compromised, at which point they’re in danger of catching fire themselves. energon isn’t super flammable when in a controlled environment like their insides, and a liquid trail can catch fire, but it’ll take a mortal wound to really get someone burning up inside

hhhmmmmmmmmm i... don’t think i’m going to use them in SNAP, or at least this storyline. i’d probably make them extraterrestrial creatures sort of like what they were in TFA. they’d fit in with stories of demons and invaders for sure