#org/speculation

[soleil-in-the-sky]

alrighty i havent yet looked at the new toons name so name prediction time!!!

some variation of pansy (please be panzy please be panzy)

some variation of patty

some variation of tina (pretty close to tisha)

some variation of natasha (still too close to tisha)

some play on frills or fiesta???

a latino name

something else entirely and i lose

[soleil-in-the-sky]

(edit 2: if the read more doesn't work for you, pls tell me so i can tag as long post!)

cant believe i missed this, but i don't care. a late opportunity to make underdog!susie and evil!taranza propaganda is still an opportunity. (edit: yeah now i realize it sounds like i hate taranza but that is not the case at all. i like taranza too, its just I'd like to see more of taranza being actually evil during TDX.) (edit 2: ok so this post is kinda... bossy??? honestly even if i don't like when ppl do it, its ok to not like susie or characterize her as evil, or make taranza less evil than he was in tdx, everybody is entitled to their opinion. plus susie's morality isn't really stated so its up to interpretation. plus i might've missed stuff..... i don't feel like rewriting this, so yeah, sorry if this post feels rude or pushy.)

but yeah, It's absolutely susie and taranza. IIRC, Susie was a mole against HWC the whole time (and her still mechanizing people is a mistranslation. the OG JP version of KSA states she betters lives and brings family harmony using science.), while Taranza willingly helped Sectonia take over.

The problem with susie is that, while the OG version of Robobot implies shes been in the company for a short time (saying "i didnt think this opportunity would come so soon" instead "i didnt think this day would come" when stealing the controller), it still doesn't specify just what she thinks about the mechanization project (from what i've seen). She could have been plotting to reset star dream's creations before selling it, but she could of also just not cared. I also feel like her putting up a facade isnt mentioned enough (maybe its more obvious in jp bc she goes from using a formal watashi to a more informal atashi).

Meanwhile, from what I know, there is no indication in the OG version of TDX that Taranza was against helping Sectonia.

I think the reason she is so hated is because 1. HWC is way too similar to real life, and again, her stance on the companys actions is ambiguous, and 2. Mecha Knight... just mecha knight. That's a whole can of worms i dont feel like discussing too much bc i just want to finish this dang post. But my 2 questions for anyone whos knows more/has the time are these:

Is mechanization really as painful as people make it to be? Obviously there's the loss of free will, which sucks, but is that really unforgivable? (and yes, mechanization is reversible, and all of star dream's creations were reversed with its destruction, hopefully including previous planets, which susie may not even have been there for.) Magolor wanted to conquer the galaxy and rule over everyone, and Taranza helped Sectonia take over Floralia too, so what's the difference? But yeah, does mechanization really involve physical pain?

And also, does meta knight really fear susie? Everyone says that because of that one KSA title screen animation, but who says that meta knight flinches because of mecha knight, and not because shes a crazy fangirl? And when she notices DMK and stops to think, who says shes planning to make another mecha knight? Who says shes not thinking because shes just discovered another meta knight? There's also a kirby twitter illustration for hinamatsuri where susie gets to be the hina doll, and meta knight sits next to her as the emperor doll, and merely has a concerned expression, like almost everyone else in the picture, since susie was not expected to be the hina doll.

Ok, i ended up talking about mecha knight a lot more anyway. Im getting tired, lets move onto taranza. People (and honestly, even HAL) keep boiling his personality down to "sad heartbroken boi", and although its true him helping sectonia may have been because of his crush, he is also described in various sources as intelligent, clumsy, and easily lost in thoughts (although that last part may just be him mourning).

Another susie thing: she calls popstarians and jambandrans "uncivilized". Yikes. I think that's just a bad decision from HAL's part. Same thing with Taranza calling "bonjam" a "silly greeting".

I spent all day writing......... bye.. 😴

Please be polite and respectful ^^'

[cirrus-grey]

Folks who know about computers, help me out: is ".jmj" a file type? I'm thinking like .exe, .jpeg, .pdf...

I don't know other computer terms that would start with a . like that, but then again I don't know much about computers

[organic-origins]

organic hands - desc below

a little thing i whipped up summer of '23. orgono hands are unlike any other organic life form. only one thumb, as opposed to two. the dexterity in their last two fingers remains incredible, though, and there is a residual limb (digit?) from the long-lost thumb. although in more modern times it's becoming smaller and smaller.

they don't have webbing on their thumbs. watsonian reasoning is that it made sense for tool use and interacting with dry land more, however the doyalist reason is that i realized they cant hold hands. orgono are beings of love, they have to hold hands.

they've got cylinder claws, akin to a canine (i forget the proper term for them) and thick calloused hands that have a similar purpose to paw pads. they're not as soft, though, and can be peeled off like a horse chestnut if you really wanted to do that. don't do it, though. their hands are sensitive :(

sorry for the absence. have been busy!

[soleil-in-the-sky]

Just gonna quickly link this later post on how magolor epilogue's descriptions essentially confirm this.... Well, probably confirmed but still ridiculously likely.

The Interactions of Marx & Magolor

Some think I’m out of my mind thinking Magolor’s castle (or “Magolor Land”) bears a resemblance to Marx, and even more crazy to think it will lead to an appearance by him in the remake. 

…And maybe they’re right!

But I would just like to see these two who have been hinted at knowing each other for nearly TWELVE YEARS to finally interact on screen together. Canonically. (Not counting Star Allies. Great as it is.)

So, with that in mind, let’s take a look back at all the times Marx and Magolor have canonically (or canon-adjacent) been hinted at knowing each other or otherwise been seen together!

1) Magolor’s “somebody” in the “Return to Dream Land” script

Keep reading

[kolbietheaggrievedwriter]

I should be in bed (and I'm going now!), but I just binged a couple chapters of A Guide for Background Characters to Survive in a Manga and my god do I love a protagonist who will dip out the SECOND he spots trouble 🤣🤣

An enemy he trounced a while back showed up to take revenge via ambushing him and his class, and she was like "it won't be so easy this time" & he was like "you wanna bet?" & then turned invisible & ran away immediately 😭😭😭 The class wasn't even surprised! They're used to it by now lmao I stan this man. Major respect.

[aqlstar]

While we’re speculating about the potential political consequences of deporting Khalil (which is both legal and morally justifiable-I’m working under the assumption that you and I agree the only issue here is the possibility of a perceived win for trump/trump feeling empowered to overstep his bounds; if this is not the case please click on the posts I linked above)…

Allow me to propose the idea that addressing antisemitism by deporting deportable students and faculty involved in pro-Hamas protests might actually be the worst thing Trump could possibly do for his own political movement.

I know, I know- hear me out:

We’ve talked before about how left wing antisemitism fuels right wing antisemitism and vice versa. We know that Trump thrives on extremism and polarized political climates. There’s a reason he decided tiktok should stay.

In the past two or so years, we’ve seen the anti-Israel movement shift further towards the mainstream of the democratic movement. By my estimation, it’s responsible for totally undercutting the effectiveness of the pro-Ukraine movement, the pro-choice movement, and honestly Harris’s entire campaign.

Mahmoud Khalil was organizing a (honestly scarily effective campaign) to convince liberal college students (who should have been a shoe in for Harris) not to vote.

The only chance the Democrats have at preserving democracy under Trump and being elected next term hinges on their ability to somehow exorcise these pro-Russia, pro-terrorism elements from left wing orgs.

So if Trump wants to give them a hand in a way that is honestly surprisingly (given that it’s Trump) legal and above board?

Take the win. He is doing the Democrats’ work for them.

***If Trump were actually playing 5D chess, he’d figure out a way to botch the deportation paperwork/legal proceedings in such a way that democratic appointed judges would have to object to, and then he could keep the extremists on the left here in America while simultaneously blaming the Democrats for his failure.

[kithj]

the laughing man house publishing is putting together a charity anthology to benefit orgs assisting in western NC. guidelines:

THEME: Folk horror and ghost stories, it doesn't have to be specific to Appalachia (although that is a bonus). WORD COUNT: >8k loosely, but if you have something that goes over, that's totally fine!  ART: We welcome art!  POEMS: Absolutely! 

deadline is october 11th. thought i’d share here if anyone is interested in contributing, you can find the interest form at their linktree:

[0-lcb-sinner]

went over the cutscenes one more time. thus, i present to you a collection of things we learned this intervallo (SPOILERS!! under the cut)

if you have anything else to add, pls share

city lore:

w corp has been having Issues for some time, might go under

check-ups in the city are the worst shit ever

p corp's singularity is Expansive Space Warping technology; different from other space warping stuff due to how they're aiming to make the "safest place in the world" where, no matter what happens outside, inside is unaffected (sounds familiar?)

bloodfiends propagate to share the thirst instead of one individual bearing all of it

L corp prioritized hiring people with trauma (predictable)

limbus company org lore:

lc department list so far: lca (?), lcb (bus), lccb (clearance before), lcca (clearance after), lcd (distortion), lce (extraction enkephalin! thanks for the correction)

lce stores and researches abnos, distortions, peccatula, and related stuff

lce lifted a lot of stuff (including abno risk designations, for example) from L corp

lce doesn't have qliphoth deterrence so they have to beat the shit out of abnos manually every time

abno/distortion/peccatula and related stuff lore:

peccatula are entities that failed to distort

there might be more peccatula stages beyond stage 3

the golden bough brings some other entities down a notch (like the whale and, while not mentioned there, manchaland's don quixote)

distortions eventually turn into abnormalities, which removes all individuality and renders un-distorting impossible

time ripper is classified as HE-7-PI-20-01 (HE - risk level, PI - pigritia (sloth) affinity; it's stated that 6 is the expected damage to occur, but it's mentioned nowhere in the classification, so it might be a typo from 7)

distorted hohenheim is classified as HE-5-SU (5 expected damage, SU - superbia (pride))

monoliths are scattered through the city like the boughs, and can force a distortion

hohenheim's (wrong) hypothesis: holding a firm belief in the self is enough to remain a distortion

lcb-specific lore:

reviving sinners still leaves them with stress and fatigue, so it can't be used to solve every heath issue under the sun

everyone grew weaker after making the contract with dante; they were basically brought down to the level of sinclair, with the exception of some individual quirks

sinclair was a teacher's pet

rocinante made the call to reawaken sancho back during murder on the warp express

dante doesn't just resonate with sinners by seeing their memories; they can also be influenced by something strongly influencing one of the sinners

when taking rocinante off, don quixote feels the thirst of every bloodfiend of her family and hears their voices

don quixote states she "was made to ascend to [her] father's seat"

yi sang is the weakest sinner, don quixote is the strongest; greggy didn't even get on the list (has a certain potential and is an exception)

lcb would currently be classed between urban plague and urban nightmare, with the potential to eventually become a sotc

wild speculation fodder:

gregor is not feeling so good; fails to elaborate on that. his arm has been quiet ever since the contract, tho?

outis seems a bit jumpy on the topic of war between wings (possible lead towards the "smoke war veteran" theory?)

sinclair and hong lu are associated with wrath

gregor, faust, meursault are associated with sloth

outis, rodion, heathcliff are associated with gluttony and gloom

ishmael and ryoshu are associated with pride and lust

yi sang and don quixote are associated with envy

"because the realization of meaninglessness extinguishes the reason for the spark to start a fire" WHAT DID YOU MEAN HONG LU

RODION FEELS LIKE SHE'S FLOUNDERING IN SOME DITCH.... BABYGIRL......

"the flow" is that the manager will be preserved?..

[smileposting]

one of the Big Hurdles for me when it comes to thinking about the drain is trying to strike that balance between "engages meaningfully with GGG's Overarching Themes" and "could plausibly exist in a saturday morning cartoon setting, goofs and all." with that said here's some of my favorite ideas i've gathered from both me own brain and mutuals on discord/bluesky. unless stated otherwise none of these are Necessarily meant to overlap with one another. But They Can.

though the environment is harsh and resources are scarce, drain society itself is rather mundane. the twist is that both the grove and the drain are convinced that the other island is the worst possible fate that could befall anyone ("i hear nobody ever gets to leave the drain" vs "those who leave for the grove never come back...") and the bonkers fucking yonkers geography going on between them does not help. should they ever make proper contact postcanon there will be a lot of initial confusion. this one came about from spitballing with my lovely mutual momo who is Not on tumblr but has made some beautiful art/exploration of drain environments.

my other mutual cici's brought up the idea of there being a Drain-Specific Branch of the bizzyboys meant to look after those still in the drain + the org As A Whole reforming into a sort of mutual aid/outreach program thing (or at least such a group being set up in their place) which i also think is cool. something something embracing one's roots/place of origin albeit in a kind of roundabout way rather than shunning them entirely. i also like the idea of like, the drain branch getting news of the disbandment of the surface branch and coming up to have, ah, some strong words with hector about how if he's really gonna turn himself around then he's gotta help them get their shit sorted, too. after all, every good grove citizen knows you don't maintain a paradise through being complacent!

i know i talk about the idea that the drain is the idea of oblivion/irrelevance made manifest to be like an inverse of the grove being all about preservation and archival and recordkeeping and history In General. but i'm about to do it again: i think there's something kinda beautiful n bittersweet about the idea of there being genuine communities that have formed among people deemed Forgotten. our environment may quite literally be out to fucking kill us and any progeny we may have in here but i want you alive and hey that's gotta count for somethin'. i think this also presents a cool lil moral conundrum that could be explored in postcanon fanwork. like from the perspective of someone who's like. ok well what if i don't want to be forgotten but i also don't want to uproot my whole goddamn house just to be remembered. what if i just want to fix my house. after all, isn't that just as metal as a mass exodus?

i don't really have an end goal here i just think fan speculation meeting worldbuilding is sick as fuck lol. what are y'alls favorite ideas for the drain?

[prehistoricmancunt]

Every single meme and joke and the gross amount of eroticisation and sexualization and deification of Luigi puts him in more danger by doing the cops jobs of proving him guilty. I'm not wording this quite right but there is NO evidence Luigi is the gunman.

Celebrate the gunman, sure, but every time you call Luigi the killer with NO EVIDENCE simply bc the cops arrested him??????????

Like I'm sorry but it's baffling the way liberals and "leftists" have glommed onto Him - the individual (not even the right individual but they don't care bc he's hot) - rather than what the actual event represented.

We've had people in the movement in grassroots org telling us for years that revolution is not about the individual and not about deification Its genuinely infuriating to see the way he's treated with zero critical thinking like it makes me nauseous.

(AND there's a whole novel worth to say about the diefication of him in relation to the neoliberal hyper-consumerist, post-lockdown & TikTokified American mind and how it relates to EXTREMELY inflated levels of parasociality and an inability to take anything seriously — like literal wrongful imprisonment — and to flatten everything to someone's fuckability)

Stop talking about him like his guilt was proved.

Stop talking about him like the cops didn't pin this on the first person they could to put themselves back in charge of the narrative. (And it's working! You're playing in the COPS hands. Remember ACAB?????????? Like truly baffling)

This was some Joe Shmoe virtually plucked from the streets.

Like really think about that conceptualize that. Hold that for a minute.

This is your neighbor who's had his life obliterated.

The profound level of trauma he's enduring just to be trotted around the internet like some Hollywood star or oomf or blorbo or best friend, and to have someone on Twitter speculate on whether he's a bottom or bisexual (sexual harassment btw).

Like please be for real. Think with your big beautiful wrinkly adult brain for a minute. And yes, it is this deep.

[a-roguish-gambit]

I know Emma frost isn’t in like the original x-men evolution(I don’t think so anyways?) but I was wondering if she’d be in the turn of the century au? Or just the hellfire club in general?(I’ve been watching the old animated series again and it’s infecting my brain) I honestly just think it’d be cool to see what kinda designs you come up for Emma/the hellfire club given how they dress and how different it is to the very modest designs of the time :D

so I don’t think a lot of people realize this, but the hellfire club is loosely based off of 2 things: 1. Hellfire clubs which were like, fraternal organizations filled with rich aristocrats and politicians in Britain in the 1800s people would speculate about them doing satanic worship, and shit (9 times out of 10 it was just gay orgies and swingers clubs meeting as elite social clubs so rich people could get away with things they scorned others for) and then 2. Tammany Hall, an american fraternal political organization that basically controlled New York politics for the better part of a century and a half. If you wanted skin in the game for any position in New York, you had to grease the palms of the Sons of St. Tammany, and they would get you votes. People talk about stuff like secret societies controlling governments now, but like… we kinda used to have them and they were pretty out in the open.

More info on tammany hall here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tammany_Hall

I will say Tammy Hall wasn’t always “evil”, it was just always highly corrupt. it started out as an organization to try and provide political upward mobility for select discriminated groups, mostly Irish immigrants, but the politics of the group after that was basically that of whatever group of men was currently in charge, an oligarchy of sorts without military power. Sometimes you had good people, sometimes you have bad people and it was a roulette as to what you got, weighted by the fact that most members were highly educated and or wealthy. Their main shtick was being able to get huge swaths of people (legally or otherwise) to vote for what and who they wanted in any new york based political race.

I’m imagining the hellfire club of the 1910s au to be similarly a political fraternal org thats members are all old money heirs that discovered they were mutants, and are trying to provide upward political mobility for mutants and a cushion of protection to keep humans from finding them out as mutants and to keep a political stake for mutants rooted firmly in the establishment, but just out of sight and awareness of the public. Because they don’t have the power of a large voting block behind them, their methods of throwing weight around are a lot more covert and illicit: bribery, blackmail, manufactured scandals, little bit of brainwashing here and there… ya know.

Given the time period though and the nature of such organizations as fraternal, Emma would not normally have a place in these groups…

That is if she didn’t have a clever persona to blend in with the boys there

So yeah, she has a false identity of Eric Frost, a cousin of the New England Socialite Emma Frost from Canada that is an active member of the Hellfire Club, meanwhile Emma Frost is a prominent member of various Women’s political clubs that were incredibly common prior to women getting the vote. They were essentially special interest groups for women with money to try and gather a bit of power to swing around. However, I doubt someone like Emma Frost would be satisfied the simply being part of her local chapter of the suffragettes, and instead would want to have a say in political groups with more influence. And while it would be easy for her to just kind of mentally manipulate her way into organizations like the hellfire club with her powers, I feel like she would want to be able to prove to herself she could earn power on her own wit and merit, and the only thing really standing in her way is the prejudice of men.

[georgegraphys]

Who's in the mood for a

"the high society connects with one another!" post?

disclaimer: do not reblog with general tags such as (gr//63, ge//orge ru//sell, f//1). use your personal tags thank you.

So it all started with this

It could've been just him watching Tennis for fun but if you've been with Ari for a while here, you know that I'm not going to take an apple as just an apple. I gotta ⛏️ dig ⛏️

Let's talk about tennis. There is a really prominent figure that George met in Qatar last year. The President of Qatar Tennis Federation (Nasser al Khelaifi) and Novak Djokovic

If you ask, what does Novak got to do with QTF president? Well he got something to do with that guy. You see the one holding that PSG shirt with him? Yeah that's the same dude. That QTF President is also the president of PSG FC

Bonus point is that Novak is also recently sponsored by Qatar Airways

But I won't say George met al Khelaifi through Novak. Nope it is actually through... Stefano Domenicalli

Is it over? Nope! George also met this guy at Qatar GP. Who is this guy? The owner of Ritz London and the Brother In Law of the Emir of Qatar (he also followed George on instagram after that day but George only followed him back recently)

Why is he relevant in this conversation suddenly? As I said earlier in the beginning, "the high society connects with one another" who is this newest rich guy's friend?

The one playing padel in this picture. The QTF and PSG FC President.

You see how this goes round and round? Yep.

So now what does this have to do with George attending the Qatar Tennis match?

Again, if I weren't me, myself, and I, I'd answer "he just wants to watch tennis!" but i'm Ari so I'll answer

(this is my hypothesis, not confirmation of allegations/facts) He was invited by Nasser al Khelaifi to attend the Qatar Open. The testing is on Monday/Tuesday but we're currently on Friday. Tf would he go there so early? (Yeah i know 'holiday' answers work but we don't do easy answers here)

I speculated that he went there to watch Novak but oomf said Novak is eliminated so that's a no.

And honestly? If we put a cup of delusion and a cup of speculation to the bowl of guessing, I think there's a big chance of al Khelaifi inviting him as well. Why? Aside from the previous connection and random timing, look at his seat here

That's one fancy seat to be a stand seat. That must've been a VIP box in my opinion. This is so unlike George's previous tennis match (excluding Wimbledon's royal box) where he usually sat on the stands. And also if we see the guy sitting behind him, the table beside the guy has refreshments in it. You don't get served refreshments on a table in usual stands. So again I'm guessing it's a VIP box. And when it comes to these boxes, I doubt it's George intentionally buying the tickets. So again yeah, I think he MIGHT just be invited by possibly either a sponsor or al Khelaifi himself.

Update: It is THE VIP box (confirmed) and Al Khelaifi is seated near George. And plus points? No sponsors of the Qatar Open has any relations to Mercedes? If anything? All the opposite.

George in the VIP Box is also seated near the Qatar Royal Family members and Arsene Wenger (another invited guest, Arsenal former manager if you missed out) and the ATP president

UPDATE UPDATE: It is the THIRD time that George went to Qatar and met this Al Khelaifi guy. This time apparently Al Khelaifi brings around a photographer to photograph him (but also sneak in one pic with George) for BILD Sports and Welt???

This is irrelevant but will Qatar Airways play a role? Might be. From the photo was released, I know that he was using Qatar Airways. That is their Qsuite (it was good and worth it guys i promise) but I checked back on it now and noticed that Qatar Airways commented on his instagram post. 👀👀👀

Why is Qatar Airways relevant to the connection if you ask? Nasser Al Khelaifi is the president of Qatar Sports Investments. Qatar Airways sponsors PSG (whose chairman is also Al Khelaifi). Not only that, Qatar Airways is always present at whatever sports Al Khelaifi is present. Padel, Tennis, Football (Euro/World Cup/Champions League). There is definitely a tie between Al Khelaifi - Qatar Airways - Qatar Sports Investment. Well it's obvious isn't it? All of them are sovereign wealth!

[askaniritual]

sorry for the unsolicited info on gerard ways real life sexual proclivities you can ignore that. in other nicer news you & your partners blogs have reminded me that xforce is fantastic. 1 question: shatterstar and rachel summers have almost certainly met or at least know about each other, what do they think of each other? if the canon answer is stupid you can tell me what you see in your minds eye 👍

oh dw gerard way’s real and fictional sexual proclivities are the topic of the month here at askaniritual dot tumblr dot org dot edu i welcome all speculation with open arms

i did meet my beautiful girlfriend via x force so it is nice to hear that that shines through in our posting. i was gonna say shatterstar and rachel have never met in canon but they were on a team together in the tini howard xcal run and it is in fact boring.

i don’t think rachel has any thoughts abt shatterstar tbh like maybe they would kick it at the dyke bar sometimes but they wouldn’t be like. besties. it would just be warriors bond of fucked up childhood stuff. rachel would be like. shoutout to your mom for the ffs.

i think star would think it’s cool that cable looks up to her and would respect her as a warrior and stuff. like they’d run into each other at cubbyhole and star would be going on abt how he respects the askani warriors and their ancient techniques etc and rachel would be like that’s cool do you want to make out?

[sharenadraculea]

Dungeon Meshi Evolutionary tree!

Quick note at the beginning: this is just me speculating, mostly based on how the diffrent species look as well as the bit of other info we get in the manga. I can‘t DNA-test them.

Evolutinary tree Number one:

Evolutionary Tree Number Two:

I think Orcs are the species who branched off first and is thus the most distantly related to everyone else. This is mostly based on the fact that they still have fur and very large canines, both traits that got lost very early on in human evolution, leading me to assume that they split off before those traits got lost in other humanoids. Orcs also have a noticably diffrent nose from all the others, so I assume that developed only after they split off. Them splitting off early would have allowed for more time for that to happen, as it only happend in their branch.

Now comes the point I‘m the least certain about: Did Dwarves and Gnomes split off, leaving Elves closer related to Tall-men, Ogres and Half-Foots (Evolutionary Tree Number 1), or did Dwarves, Gnomes and Elves split off together, meaning Elves are closer related to Dwarves and Gnomes (Evolutionary Tree Number 2)? Number one is pretty much just based on looks, as Elves look very similar to Tall-men, Ogres and Half-foots, suggesting that they may be quite closely related, while Dwarves and Gnomes look a bit more „weird“. In this case Elves still split of earlier from Tall-men than Ogres did, as they are more diffrent from Tall-men. Number two is based on the fact that Elves, Gnomes and Dwarves are all long-lived species and it would make sense for them to be closer related to each other.

I do assume in both cases that Gnomes and Dwarves are closer related to each other than to anyone else, beeing both short, long-lived races and sharing some other traits, most notably their big ears and big noses, giving them somewhat similar facial traits.

Now onto the last three Species: Ogres/Oni, Tall-Men and Half-Foots. My assumption is that Orge and Tall-Men are in kind of a Neanderthal-Homo Sapiens-Situation, with Ogres originating from a colder climate, which leads to them beeing overall bigger to better deal with the colder temperatures. (It is called Bergmann‘s rule, it has to due with the square-cube-law. Short version, bigger bodies have proportionally less surface area and thus loose less heat) My theory for Half-Foots is that they are a offshoot of tall-men that shrunk due to insular dwarfism, as they look very similar to Tall-men except for their size, thus often beeing mistaken for Tall-Men children, and it doesn‘t seem like Half-Foots are very widespread. (Insular dwarfism also happend with Homo Floresiensis, a noticablly very small species of irl humans, it‘s super cool and where I got the idea from) But wait! Didn‘t I forget somone? What about Kobold‘s? Well, I have zero idea what to do with them. They have a dog‘s head and a fuzzy humans body. Are they canids that convergently evolved to resemble humans? Are they the unholy creation of some mad scientist? I have no idea, if you have any, please tell me.

As for Beathkin, my understanding is that they don‘t occur naturally but need to be artificially created (or at least their ancestors were), so they didn‘t really evolve.

[thebluestbluewords]

An offer she couldn’t refuse…

I don’t know what’s going on with the new Rise of Red trailer, and at this point I’m too afraid to ask. I’m not too afraid to speculate though!!

+

Uma grinds her boots on the carpet as she walks into Mal's office. It's not muddy enough for her to track much in, but she's still got old blood on her heels, and bloodstains never really come out. 

It's petty. Evil knows it's petty, but after all this time, Uma's pretty sure she deserves a little petty when it comes to the new queen. She's not the one with the ostentatious royal sign on her door, and she's certainly not the one putting kingdom business on hold so she can host the fluffy, stupid wedding of her dreams. 

Not that they're here to talk about that.  

"Princess." 

Mal spins around. "Uma." 

Uma steps closer. There's a desk in between them, but that's not a problem. The little queen is short, just like her wicked mother, and Uma's got practice looming over people taller than her. With Mal's fairy stature, it's not trouble at all for Uma to lift her chin and glare down her former archnemesis. In fact, it's a pleasure. 

Mal drops her gaze first. Hah. 

"Thanks for coming," she says, dropping into her fancy fucking desk chair. "I appreciate it. I know you're busy, what with the pirating and all. It means a lot that you came." 

Uma drops into the other chair that somebody has so conveniently placed on the visitor's side of the desk. "Cut the shit, princess.  You called me here for a reason, and I'm here because I want to know what it is. No more, no less." 

Mal's eyes flicker back up to meet her own. They're bright green. Magical bright green. 

Well, shit. 

"I have an offer for you," the Queen of Auradon says slowly. "Which I think you're uniquely qualified for. You can turn it down if you want, but I'm asking you to hear me out first. Fair?" 

Uma lifts a finger up to tap her mother's necklace where it sits hot against her collarbone. The problem with magical items is that you can't always turn them off. It's not that she wants to take advantage of her mother's ocean magic and use the locket to steal whatever spell Mal's got sitting behind her eyes, but sometimes the magic just slips out, and she ends up absorbing spells that weren't intended for her. 

Sometimes they're even useful. 

"Life ain't fair, princess," Uma drawls. "But sure, I'll hear you out. What'd you got for me?" 

"Headmaster. Of Auradon Prep." 

"No."

Mal's eyes flash. "Hear me out, Uma."

"No way. A school full of royals is never gonna listen to a pirate from the Isle of the Lost. You might as well ask an orge to be headmaster." 

"Good to know you consider yourself on the same level as ogres," Mal snaps. "But you said you'd listen to me. I need someone from the Isle to serve as acting headmistress while Fairy Godmother is on sabbatical, and I want it to be you." 

Uma swings a foot up to grind her boot heel on the chair too. "Why me? Why not Princess Blueberry, or your precious Freddie Facilier?" 

"Freddie's busy. Evie's not available. And they're not the leaders of a pirate crew. They don't have your experience with managing idiots.”

"If you only brought me here to insult my crew, I can leave." Uma offers, jerking a finger over her shoulder towards the door. 

She takes a special satisfaction in making the queen of Auradon grind her teeth. Sure, her ex-girlfriend can just grow her magical dragon teeth out bigger and better than before, but Uma's got to make her use those magic powers. No easy roads out for the princess who grabbed freedom with both hands and left the rest of them behind. 

"Please," Mal grits out. "Uma. I wouldn't be asking you if I had anyone else that I thought could do it, you know this. Auradon Prep is--" 

She cuts herself off. 

Fascinating. 

"Auradon Prep is what?" 

"It's-- look, I can't give you the details unless you want the job." 

Oh, she wants the job.

"I can't accept the job," Uma says carefully, letting each word slip out like a pearl from her mother's oysters, "Until I know what it entails. I have a whole crew relying on me, and I can't just abandon them for just any old headmaster role. I need to know it'll be worth my while." 

The office door clicks shut. 

Uma leans back in her chair as Mal's eyes glow green, greener, and slip closed. 

"Swear that you won't speak of this to anybody outside this room," Mal intones in a voice that is both hers and not her own. "Swear on the ocean." 

Uma scoffs. "I'm not swearing anything. I tell my left hand man everything that I know. It's why we work. Honesty, princess, ever heard of it?" 

Mal's eyes crack open. They're glowing scary green, like the bioluminescent algae that Uma pulls up from the sea floor sometimes when she's bored with waiting for the Southern Isles' trade ships to appear. Sort of a freaky color if you're not ready for it. "You can tell Harry. But that's it, and if he tells anybody else, I get to send my crows after him." 

"Deal." 

Her eyes slip shut again. That voice, the creepy double-edged rasp of magic, creaks out of her throat.  "Then swear it, daughter of Ursula. Swear that what you hear today will not leave this room, except to confer with your second in command." 

Aw, hell. 

"I swear." Uma says, mostly just to get her to shut up. "Swear it on my mother's watery grave." 

"It is done," Mal intones. "Remember your promise, daughter of the sea." 

Uma rolls her eyes. "Yeah, yeah. Give me the deets, Mal." 

Her ex's head flops forward. The light cuts out abruptly from her eyes. It's creepy, but they were born and raised in creep central, so it's not like Uma's freaked out by the frankly gratuitous display of magic bullshittery. 

Her head snaps back up before Uma can think to poke her with one of her knives. "There's a time distortion."