#<-more on the idea of bunny having some kind of weird. Thing for being predated

[hoofpeet]

This guy's a freak...

#hoof draws #hoofology #<-more on the idea of bunny having some kind of weird. Thing for being predated #does this count as suggestive #also tangentially on the first panel. I'm SO mad there's no gyro places here- not even an hour away #got spoiled by the dino's in st paul evidently and now I MISSS lamb meat #suggestive #cannibalism #<-as per request

[w1f1n1ghtm4r3]

ippiki au lore dump

if the name of the au does not make it very obvious, this au was inspired very heavily by the trained cards for kick it up a notch (i just chose to reference the comm, hitsuji ga ippiki, as the au name because it sounds cooler than calling it like. kickup au. so its ippiki au instead. when i first started working on this i just called it animal fighters au but thats long LOL)

its one of my favorite sets, im a big fan of dystopian and post-apocalyptic themes which the set hits perfectly and there was room to have fun with animal designs (i mean, seriously, they gave kohane sheep horns and named akitos costume "hound kid") and so i started thinking from the moment i laid eyes on the set when it leaked and i ended up with an au based around the idea of animal/human hybrids.

first of all for actual au stuff, character profiles! these were made a lot earlier on into working the au so ive made minor adjustments to their designs since then, but nothing drastic. mainly just little things ive changed when drawing them in more detail, like additional scars and such.

while making kohane a sheep and akito a dog (hes... not a specific kind of dog. hes a mix of a whole bunch of different larger domestic dog breeds combined with some wild canines. ) were obvious from the set, deciding on the animals for an and touya required a bit more thought. i ended up settling on a fox for an partially as a nod to her ny3 card and also because for a long time now ive thought theyre fitting for her anyway, and touya as a black leopard because... he's kitty. but i wanted to make him a big kitty not a domestic kitty. i do also like bunny touyas but for how i was feeling with this au i wanted him to be a cat.

theres the fun little detail that kohane is the only animal that isnt a predator in vbs.

but i should probably explain why theyre animal hybrids in this au.

im going to put the rest of the lore dump and more art below, this gets long.

basically, in the face of a coming apocalypse, there was an effort to attempt to hybridize humans with animals to see if they could create a form of human (or something seen as "human enough") that would be more resilient if the apocalypse threatened the survival of normal humanity. it was never completely successful and the hybrids were less stable/generally shorter lived (if physically stronger) but it ended up being unnecessary and enough of humanity survived to rebuild. but the experiments to create hybrids continued.

in the present day of the au, hybrids are created for... less pleasant tasks. the kinds of things people dont want to take on, and theyre physically stronger than the average human so theyre put to those jobs instead. or theyre created as showpieces/pets for the wealthy (most people outside of those circles find it strange to keep hybrids like that though. hybrids arent always seen as being truly human (although theyre fully capable of everything human and then some) but theyre still seen as human enough for it to be weird).

many of them though, are created as sacrifices for entertainment in battle arenas where theyll have to fight each other to the death. its a seemingly inevitable fate to die there once theyre sent, but escape has happened before. an is living proof of that, as both of her parents are escaped arena fighters who helped establish a small town of hybrids out in the wasteland beyond the city at the core of hybrid creation and sacrifice.

how an ended up as an arena fighter despite being born well outside the city... thats a long story.

touya is a showpiece fighter, created to fight but kept secure and safe outside of his registered fights. he might be healthier physically, much less worn down by fighting, but hes been very socially isolated and doesnt fit in with other hybrids very well.

an and touya fight in the same arena, and touyas fight days are the only times he interacts with other hybrids. hes given free reign around the hybrid compound (where most other hybrids are restricted under collars and chains) and he ends up meeting an there. although tense, they become sort of friends and he frees her and they escape together.

kohane and akito are just normal arena fighters, created solely for that purpose, although kohane was meant as an early sacrifice due to her skittish nature, but she survives. theyre in the same arena as each other, although its a harsher one than the one antouya are in, theyre unable to properly interact with anyone else at all and are just lucky enough to be neighbors to end up bonding.

i just grouped them based on which side of their face they have the barcodes on in the original cards lol in this au the arenas generally brand their fighters with a code for identifying them. touyas is actually not permanent like the others, but temporarily applied whenever he has a fight coming up (like a temporary tattoo lol)

kohane managing to survive despite the intention being that she dies is actually the driving force that starts the fic for this au (which fun fact, despite me never mentioning the title, does have a title! the fic will be called "fight, flight, freedom", unless i think of something that fits even better, but i already like the title as is so i probably wont change it)

its rough but i promise everyone gets a happy ending eventually :)

now for sitting through all that rambling heres some art

heres my very initial attempts at designs for them! no drastic changes even since this initial pass at designs tbh i was pretty content with them pretty quickly

some various doodles of them interacting, some during/around the time of the fic and others post-fic

what if they were... more animal? like furries instead of just the ears/tails? obviously noncanon but it was a fun little thing to draw

wip aged up designs! heavily inspired by the power of unity set because it also fits into the post apocalyptic type theme and i thought would work for them when theyre a little older. assume theyre about 20-21 here, while in the main canon of the au theyre about 16-17.

a silly little sketch i did last week of aged up akikoha in their burn my soul outfits... kohane cant really wear hats, horns are inconvenient for that. everyone elses ears would probably make hats difficult too, but you could probably make holes for their ears. you cant really make holes for the tops of her horns.

some little finished pieces i did for this au. can you tell akito is my favorite to draw for this?

now heres some other random au facts

an and haruka are childhood friends, haruka also being the child of ferals. haruka is a domestic cat hybrid (either a gray or black cat, i havent decided which yet). she is not in their hometown anymore either. where is she now...? ill leave you to wonder about that.

kohane and minori grew up in the same group of created hybrids together, theyre friends but were sent to different places so they dont know whats happened to each other since. minori is a goat btw (inspired by her halloween card)

a lot of ans scars are from injuries that snowballed after an incident in a fight that severely broke her tail and led to part of it being amputated. her balance was thrown off for a while after that so she was a little clumsier in fights than normal

akitos scars on the other hand are caused by the fact that hes a reckless fighter. a good fighter, but not much care for the damage he takes in the process. that and improper padding on his collars and muzzle, leaving those spots unable to fully heal from being rubbed against metal for months and when they finally do heal they scarred.

im still sorting things out for sure but tentatively for vbs npcs i have decided on fox ken and yuka (obviously, same as an), tiger taiga (i mean... how could i not go for the pun. and i think it suits him), maned wolf nagi (update march 2024 ive drawn nagi now so this is what has been made canon), raccoon kotaro, caracal arata, and dog souma (sorry to any tatsuya fans, i have not figured out how to include him in the au at all)

vbs all very clingy with each other once they get comfortable together. platonic polysquad ❤️

other characters outside of vbs exist in this au but theyre just not relevant enough to the story for me to include here 👍

the fic outline is like 2.4k words. the first chapter is a couple scenes away from being finished and its about 5k words. it will not be the longest chapter of the fic. this is going to be a long au.

maybe ill do another lore dump another day if i can think of more stuff. well see.

if you made it this far, thank you for reading, heres an edit i made the moment we got high quality versions of the cards and is probably partially responsible for the existence of this au

#w1f1 ramblings #w1f1 draws #ippiki au #project sekai #vivid bad squad #long post #sorry this is an absurdly long post #i may be a little hyperfixated on my own au. lol. #i just love my fucked up little creatures #my goal is to hopefully finish the fic by the time kickup reaches ensekai #but we shall see when i complete it id rather make it good than rush to get it out in time

[gillianthecat]

I watched Kissable Lips and perhaps it's just my bad mood (still sick but now with a sore throat PLUS my period started so I have hormone induced irritability on top of feeling like shit) but I kind of hate it. Probably more than it's quality deserves, but it pissed me off, like only something that could have been much better can.

The rest is below the cut just in case there's anyone who doesn't want to be spoiled on it. (There are also vague spoilers for Once Again and Guardian.) And so I can be as irritable about it as I want but you can skip it if you liked the show.

It wasn't the ending. I mean I didn't love that either but it wasn't because the ending was sad, I often like angst and tragedy and self sacrifice. It was just that the whole thing never felt like a real show, just an outline of one. It all felt like a student project film - someone's first screenwriting attempt. I don't know, maybe it was. But while there were a lot of interesting ideas there they never came together. It was like someone describing their idea for a movie but leaving out all the connective tissue.

I was uncertain at the beginning. Vampires? Could be cool but I have to get into the right mindset and trust their world building to enjoy it. I actually quite liked episodes two and three - the seduction, the flirting. Everyone is right, the actors do have good chemistry. And I like predators that fall in love when there is a good reason for them to be a predator (like being a vampire). But then as things progressed I got more and more annoyed. And it wasn't such much that it was terrible; it was more the could have beens. Like, this could have been good, or interesting, or compelling, if only it had been given more time to develop, if there was just a little more world building, if this character had just a little more backstory, if there was some connective tissue between these scenes.

In a way, it's kind of the opposite experience of watching Big Dragon; there I have no idea what the show is trying to do, but it's doing it well. I can very clearly see what Kissable Lips is trying to do. The themes and character arcs are incredibly clear. But, frustratingly, it just doesn't succeed.

I was going to drop it after episode 6. But today I decided: there's only half an hour left, might as well finish it now so I don't have it hanging over me. And I'm in a mood where I don't want to watch anything good so I don't contaminate it with my grumpiness, so I will get it out of the way.

I think the first problem was there was no reason for Min Hyun to decide to trust x after learning he was a vampire. Like yes, I get that the theme of the story is self-sacrifice for the one you love, but Min H had known Jun Ho for what, one week? Maybe two? And there wasn't even a moment of questioning, he was just immediately like I trust this guy with my life. of course it's not weird that he's a vampire. So instead of seeming like he's in love he just comes across as a dumb bunny. No shade to the actor, he's doing his best with what he's given, but he hasn't been given enough to make mh into a character rather than a plot device.

I will talk shit about the antagonist's actor though, because that was over-acting. Again, the character was an interesting concept that wasn't given the space to become a real character.

Honestly, my favorite dynamic was between Jun Ho and the older (human?) woman. Their relationship was mysterious, but in an interesting way, not like they'd just left info out. And her angry worry and her hidden self sacrifice were interesting. Perhaps it worked better for me because it didn't quite fit into the story I was expecting. So I wasn't comparing it to what I thought it should be in my head, and was able to merely be curious about who she was. Archetypes can make for a great story, but they also come with expectations. Perhaps that is why Big Dragon is working so well for me - it's outside of my expectations now and I'm able to just watch for what it actually is.

As for the ending...

The thing is, I actually enjoy the angst of mutual self sacrifice. I loved Guardian. The ending made me sob. But it worked because I felt the weight of their relationship; I believed in their love for each other and I understood why the characters made the choices they did. Guardian had 30 hours to build up their relationship, Kissable Lips had less than 90 minutes; maybe it's just a matter of having the time. I don't know, if there is a way to make that kind of love believable so quickly, Kissable Lips did not manage it. And so, despite a few genuinely moving moments, I mostly felt detached, wondering, what great love? There was no weight to it.

All the stuff with the ring though - Jun Ho kneeling, desperately searching for it in his sudden blindness, Min Hyun almost but not quite finding it and finding that Polaroid instead - that really worked somehow. I got actual goosebumps.

I think I just struggle with these super short Korean series. Who knows, perhaps if they were cut into a movie format they'd work better for me but the 10 minute chunks and all the constant flashbacks to stuff we've just seen annoy me. I haven't seen any Strongberry stuff (Choco Milk Shake is my first) so this may not apply to them, but I felt irritated, to varying degrees, with Color Rush, Once Again, and The Tasty Florida.

Once Again was the best of these (even though the end confused me) but it still felt more like a sketch than I wanted it too, not quite a fully fleshed out story. Color Rush I think had some similar problems to Kissable Lips for me, it could have been fascinating, but there just wasn't enough time for the world building and character development to make me really care. (Also, I really wish they'd filmed everything in black and white and only used color when Y was seeing in color. I think that would have been an instant improvement in world building.) The Tasty Florida was the least ambitious of these, no fantasy world building required, so it should have worked. And it almost did, but I still found its flimsiness mildly annoying. And I wasn't a fan of the random separation/time skip at the end. I get that it's a thing in Korean BLs (and maybe not just BL?) but i almost never like it. It feels like they're outsourcing all the character growth to happen off screen.

#kissable lips #kissable lips the series #kissable lips bl #kissable lips korean bl #kissable lips korea #korean bl #gillianthecat reacts to bl #korean short series bl #color rush #once again bl #the tasty florida #guardian #gillianthecat hates being sick

[zootopiathingz]

Into the Wilde

Harsh Reality

Another day, another 200 dollars. Despite the whole situation at Jumbeaux's Café, Finnick and I were able to stay on schedule and we sold enough popsicles to feed a whole slice of lemmings—which we did. It's the easiest money we made in a long time.

After selling the sticks to the foremen in Little Rodentia, Finnick and I drive back to an empty alley so we can split the money. I count the dollars as I hand them down to him, and once it's even I pocket my own share of the money, eating one of the leftover popsicles that I have kept for myself. Hey, this business isn't easy work, I deserve a little treat once in a while.

"Way to work that diaper, big guy." I say to Finnick as he takes off the elephant costume. He hops up into his van, saying nothing to me. He must be mad about what I did at the ice cream shop. Only one way to be sure. "Hey, no kiss bye-bye for Daddy?" I tease him.

He spits out the pacifier as he slams the door shut, turning to me with a cold glare. Yep, he's mad. "You kiss me tomorrow, I'll bite your face off!" He warns, starting the van. He puts on a pair of shades and starts blasting his weird hip-hop music. "Ciao." He says more calmly before driving away.

I might have gone too far by making him cranky, but then again I can't recall a time when he's ever been, you know, happy. Well, now that work is done I guess all that's left for me to do is wander the streets for the millionth time.

But as I watch Finnick drive off, I suddenly hear a voice saying something to me. And as I turn my head, I see the bunny from earlier. Only this time she's not quite as friendly. She must've finally gotten wise and realize what really happened at the café.

"Well, I stood up for you, and you lied to me." She says, stomping her foot. "You liar!"

I'm not intimidated by her, if anything her anger is kind of amusing. "It's called a hustle, sweetheart." I say simply. But then I try to act innocent and shift blame to someone else, "And I'm not the liar. He is!" I point in the other direction. The second she looks away, I bolt.

Well, I almost get away with it. But I don't turn the corner fast enough and I can hear her shouting. She catches up to me quickly and walks by my side, but I barely even glance at her. "Alright slick Nick, you're under arrest!"

"Really? For what?" I ask, chewing on what's left of my popsicle. This should be good.

"Gee, I don't know. How about selling food without a permit, transporting undeclared commerce across borough lines, false advertising..." She lists off. Damn, what a shame for her that she wouldn't get to see any excitement today. Does she really think this is my first day on the job?

I pull out the certificate from my pocket and hold it up in front of her face. "Permit," I turn it around, "receipt of declared commerce," I quickly pull it away, stopping in my path as we reach a crosswalk. "And I didn't falsely advertise anything. Take care."

"You told that mouse the popsicle sticks were redwood!" She accuses, pointing her finger at me.

Ah, she heard that. Well, it's still not false advertising, 'cause I wasn't wrong. I hand her my finished popsicle stick, "That's right. Red wood. With a space in the middle. Wood that is red."

The crosswalk light changes and I make my way across, yet she still follows me. I'm not sure why the conversation has to go on, but if that's how it has to be. "You can't touch me, Carrots. I've been doing this since I was born." I say to her, ignoring the group of wildebeest that's crossing the street as well.

"You're gonna wanna refrain from calling me 'Carrots'." The bunny says threateningly.

"My bad, I just naturally assumed you came from some little carrot-choked Podunk, no?" I look back at her, seeing she struggles to get through the wildebeest. I almost laugh, but she makes it out before it can become entertaining.

She catches back up to me as we reach the other side of the street. "Uh, no. Podunk is in Deerbrooke County and I grew up in Bunnyburrow." She says, weirdly proud of that. If she's still trying to be intimidating, it's not working.

I was right before, she's not from here, which explains a lot. And I guess she has yet to face disappointment. Well Carrots, prepare to have your mind blown.

"Okay, tell me if this story sounds familiar." I begin, snatching a few blueberries from a food stand. I'm pretty sure the bunny sees it, but I could care less. Stealing a couple berries isn't what's going to put me in jail. "Naive little hick with good grades and big ideas decides, 'Hey, look at me, I'm gonna move to Zootopia, where predators and prey live in harmony and sing Kumbaya'! Only to find—whoopsie," I turn around to look at her, still walking down the sidewalk. "We don't all get along. And that dream of becoming a big city cop? Double whoopsie! She's a meter maid."

I turn back around, but I catch a glimpse of her reaction. I must be right about this. I knew it.

"And whoopsie number three-sie, no one cares about her or her dreams. And soon enough those dreams die, and our bunny sinks into emotional and literal squalor, living in a box under a bridge. 'Til finally she has no choice but to go back home with that cute fuzzy-wuzzy little tail between her legs to become..." I pause, looking back at her once again. "You're from Bunnyburrow, is that what you said? So how about a carrot farmer?" I suggest, walking out from the little corner I didn't realize we walked into. "That sound about right?"

The bunny says nothing at first, but I know she's still trying to follow me. I hear her scramble around on the ground, avoiding being trampled by a bypassing rhino. "Be careful now," I warn her from a distance, "Or it won't just be your dreams getting crushed."

"Hey, hey!" She exclaims, running over to walk in front of me. "No one tells me what I can or can't be!" She declares, stopping in our path. It seems she doesn't realize there's wet cement under her. "Especially not some jerk who never had the guts to try to be anything more than a popsicle hustler!"

Eh, it's a lame comeback, but good effort. I bend down to her height so I can face her properly, giving her a smirk. "Alright look, everyone comes to Zootopia thinking they can be anything they want. Well, ya can't. You can only be what you are." I stand back up, gesturing between the two of us, "Sly fox, dumb bunny."

She glares at me, "I am not a dumb bunny."

The cement she's standing finally becomes noticeable, as now she sinks into it without even knowing—which just further proves my point.

"Right." I say, surprised she hasn't realized it yet. "And that's not wet cement."

She looks down in shock, and she's up to her knees in it by now. She tries to break loose, and it's hard not to laugh. But to be honest, I hardly laugh out loud at anything. It's more of an internal thing for me.

"You'll never be a real cop." I say as I walk passed the construction site. "You're a cute meter maid, though! Maybe a supervisor one day!" I look back at her one last time, turning behind a parked car, "Hang in there!"

Yes, I know it's a bit harsh. But she's going to find out eventually. This city crushes free-spirits like her, and I would know. I've seen it time and time again. It's not fair, but what about life is? Anyway, I had to give it to her straight. Sugarcoating doesn't do any good, and if she wants to be a city cop then she's going to have to face the music.

Besides, it's better she hears it from a stranger like me rather than someone who's opinion matters to her. And it's not like I'll ever have to see her again.

She is pretty cute, though. Too bad she's not my type.

#zootopia #nick wilde #judy hopps #finnick zootopia #wildehopps #zootropolis #zootopia fanfiction #fanfic

[incorrect-tdp-quotes]

Tdp daemon au

In honor of the 'his dark materials' show

Callum:

Callum would be quite easy I think. Due to his tendency towards air based spells and his connection to the sky arcanum, I'd settle him with an air based daemon (most likely a bird). Because of Callum's general aversion and lack of talent when it comes to fighting, I feel it would be unlikely that his daemon would settle as a bird of prey. Therefore, I think that Callum's daemon would settle as a Robin.

Rayla:

This decision to me was very simple. I would give Rayla or expect her daemon to settle as a mountain lion. They are exceptional climbers (as we have also seen in Rayla) and are capable of climbing trees (therefore easy for them to get to her village). I chose a mountain lion because although they are predators, they are not at the very top of the food chain. This is reflected in how Rayla is an exceptional fighter, but there are instances in which she has been overpowered.

Ezran:

As Ezran is a child, his daemon would not have settled yet, but I would assume his daemon's most common forms to take would be a ferret, a toad like Bait and highly likely a dragon. In terms of when his daemon settles, I would fluctuate between toad and dragon depending on the circumstances. If Aaravos continues to be a solid antagonist along with Viren and potentially Claudia, I can see his daemon settling as a dragon, as it would be more suited to defend him in case of an attack. However if the three antagonists stay low for the time skip, I can see his daemon settling as a toad.

Harrow:

The bird Harrow had as a pet (and the theory that his soul is now in its body). This is symbolic as if Callum's daemon settles as a Robin like I think it would, it would mean he would share this common species with his dad. If anything, I think it would give a sort of comfort to Callum.

Viren:

Worm. Or snake. Either works.

Soren:

I think that Soren's daemon would settle as a golden retriever. Partially due to his personality being basically a human golden retriever, but also because we saw in the first season his positive dynamics with the dogs I assumed he had trained. I think that his daemon would not settle until season 3 however, as it would symbolise his decision in staying loyal (similarly to a dog) to his true king, and becoming his personal protector. Also I just like the idea of a golden retriever protecting a toad.

Claudia:

Claudia's daemon would be either a crow or a large black wolf, but I think it would be more likely the former (I'll explain why later). The crow is the symbol of death and misfortune, which is what seems to surround Claudia at this time in her life. I believe that her daemon would have settled young, around the same time her father started teaching her dark magic, as a sort of premonition of what is to come along her path.

Aaravos:

This man has no soul. If you dont believe me, look at that smug face. No soul, no daemon therefore he is bitter. Bitter worm man. (Tiny Caterpillar daemon)

Amaya:

I think that as a fighter, Amaya would need to have a loyal, strong daemon, able to help her in battle if needs be. This is where I decided that her daemon would be likely to settle as a horse. I know this sounds weird at first, but hear me out. Amaya's daemon settling as a horse would give her transportation, and a large daemon to be reckoned with. Horses are scary man. My uncle has a percherone, and those fuckers are massive. Amaya has one of those as a daemon and no one fucks with her as a result.

Janai:

SUNFIRE WOLF. that's basically all I have to say. Janai, like Amaya, would need a daemon that could adapt to her surroundings of constant fighting, and I feel that in this au elf daemons have special characteristics depending on the elf species of their other half. Janai's wolf is beautiful (much like her) and deadly in a fight. However, Amayas daemon seems to be the first daemon shes seen that is not weary or outright scared of her daemon.

Runaan:

Due to the whole arrow letter thing I believe that Runaan would have matching eagle or hawk daemons with Ethari. Runaans daemon would help him in looking ahead and scouting for missions. It could help him relay feedback to members of his team and warn them of any potential dangers ahead.

Crow master:

Bunny. Soft boy. Cute boy. No death crow for him. Soft black bunny for soft letter boy. I love him.

Corvus:

Corvus would also have a dog, similarly to Soren, but his would be a German shepherd or a Weimaraner. Both are good hunting and tracking dogs, things that Corvus specialises in. They show loyalty and kind heartedness, and can also be loving family dogs.

Sarai:

Sarai's daemon would also be a horse, a matching percherone with her sister. This to me makes sense as in her death scene you can see her horse not far off. It can be assumed that both Sarai and the horse died in the same time frame, which to me would be a very emotional and fitting daemon. I also just like the idea of big strong horse getting soft cuddles from fluffy bird.

(If you would like a part two with some of the other characters, background/new just let me know)

#tdp #the dragon prince #tdp daemon au #callum #rayla #ezran #soren #viren #claudia #harrow #sarai #amaya #janai #aaravos #crow master #corvus #runaan #ethari

[popculturebuffet]

Star Vs the Forces of Evil Reviews: The Blood Moon Ball (1-15)

Welcome back.. though to most of you probably just joining me, welcome. I’ve been on a sorta hiatus from revewiing due to a combination of procrastination, depression, and being really busy. But I finally decided it was time to put boots to the ground and get back to doing what I love: Going on way too long about children’s television.  As such, with She Ra taking a bow a few weeks back and nailing it I got to thinking about another show that just so happened to end the year before: Star Vs the Forces of Evil. Part of it was very simple: She ra ended on a trriumphant note, making a well set up romance that had been it’s backbone canon, having a wonderful final battle, tons of payoff and a throughly happy ending that satisfied all involved and got tons of well earned coverage for having a deep, meaningful relationship between two lesbians finally coming together being the thing that saves the universe. It was freaking great.  Meanwhile a year prior Star Vs, after having been treated like toilet dinner by disney for no good reason by having it’s final season shoved out over a few sundays after a yearlong hiatus.. ended not with a bang, but with a wah wah trumpet. The series ending was unsatisfying, left more questions than answers, had the title character loose all likeablity and was in general miserable. I hadn’t been this pissed off at a finale since How I Met Your Mother and hadn’t seen a romance botched this badly in animation since “Merry Christmas Mordecai”. It was BADDDDD.  However it did make me want to go back to the series; To revisit the good, the bad and the just plain weird to remember what made me love the series, what made me want to throw my tv into a river before reminding myself “No dude, shit’s expensive. “, and what COULD have been, what SHOULD have been and what WASN’T. So i’ll be reviewing assorted episodes.. and the best place to start for me was with the introduction of one of the series best characters, as well as at the same time the start of a ship that was a good idea at first but would slowly take the series down with it as it started to fall apart. This is Blood Moon Ball. There will be blood, and a dead horse, after the cut. 

Before we get into the episode, one of the series most notable and honestly a damn good one, for those 2 of you not familiar with the series a quick refresher: Star VS is the story of Star Butterfly, a rebelious 14 year old princess from the Kingdom of Mewni. Mewni is your standard medievil fantasy kingdom.. but you know with wifi because they have magic compacts that work as phones and large sale acess to the multiverse. Their also ruled over by a long sucession of queens with great and terrible magic power, which is channeld through an increidbly powerful wand that’s passed down from generation to generation.  On her 14th birthday Star gets her turn with the wand.. and not long after sets everything on fire. Not wanting the kingdom to get blown up while Star figures out thing, her parents send her to Earth, and after bribing the school principal into enroling her, that’s not a joke on my part but an actual joke from the pilot, Star soon becomes an exchange student, boarding with the Diazes and soon becoming best friends with their teenage son Marco, a saftey obessed, shy talented martial artist. The two are frequently forced to beat up the hordes of Ludo, a spoiled monster king who wants the wand for himself. Things would get way darker... like in literally two seconds as the revelation star’s people stole mewni from the monsters and Star’s hatred being revealed to be partly racisim instead of standard hero and villian stuff. But that’s for future reviews. Today we have demons, internet commentors and ship tease to get to. So with the basic premise set up let’s finally get on with it.  We open on the arrival of my boy and yours, hopefully, Tom Lucitor. Tom is the prince of the underworld, basically exactly what it sounds like: fire, brimstone, demons spooky scary skeltons sending shivers up your spine. He’s also Star’s ex boyfriend. How they broke up is.. never really explained. While more details about their relationship, includign the fact Tom bought Star her iconic Devil Horn headband on their frist date, were revealed in the tie-in spellbook, and reveals that star’s arson that got her sent to mewni happened right after her and tom broke up, but never explains WHY.  My guess is since the series clearly frames the breakup as Tom’s fault in this episode and on his anger, they probably didn’t want a scene of him screaming his head off at star, either to keep him sympathetic or , more likely, because a scene of a teenage girl watching her boyfriend having a rage fueld breakdown that leads to htem breaking up would be MASSIVELY uncomfortable to watch and unlike some uncomfortable to watch scenes, wouldn’t tell us anything we didn’t know already. So unlike some later things they never pulled the trigger on this one at least makes sense.  Anywho, Tom arrives, parking in the handicap spot (a nice little gag as Star’s crush at the time Oskar points it out, while the dead skeletal horse pulling tom’s carriage turns around to look at him), and all the girls stop and stare.. including Janna, who would probably regret this moment once she realize tom was a bad boy because he’s socially awkard and has anger issues. Basically he’s Kylo Ren but his redemption dosen’t come straight out of JJ Abrhams ass.  Tom arrives at Star’s classroom, removes his shade and damn if he dosen’t have game.. but naturally showing up unnannaounced to her school (Not that TOm probably gets what school is as Mewni dosen’t have those, but still), basically assuming she’ll go out with him, after they had a messy breakup it dosen’t go well and we get a great cut of Star shoving tom back into his carriage.. we also get the best joke of the episode.  Star: So take your invitation and your fire and your dead horse and go.  Dead Horse: wait.. i’m dead? Sad but hilarious. Anyways it’s quickly conved to viewers like us that Tom has anger problems, but he insists to star he’s doing better: he has an anger managment counsler he takes with him places, Brian, voiced by the wonderful and weirdly in Disney’s pocket these days Stephen Root, and a bunny he pets. Before star can pet said bunny Marco , KARATE CHOPS TOM’S HAND OFF.. I just.. until this review I hadn’t sat back to consider just how freakishly strong that boy is , that he can just accidently chop off a hand. I mean tom may have weak joints or something but even after taking far worse blows later on his hands just.. don’t come off. Tom flies itnto a rage and it becomes clear that yeah, whatever happened, it was tom’s fault, and given the kind of rage she flies into, you can see why i’d assume the writers really didn’t want the audience to see him at his worst. I certainly don’t.  Star both worried and clearly having seen this sort of thing go bad before urges Marco to run but tom quickly recovers, both reuniting with his hand and having calmed down, and he and Marco are formally introduced, with star explaning the invite. We also get a great line with marco encouraging her “Star never go with a preadator to a second location”. This show was damn good at getting shit past the radar and i’m here for it. Anyways, Star isn’t quite sold despite tom clearly TRYING to get better, and Tom , in a really nice  move, gives her a bell and tiny hammer to summon his carriage with if she decides to go but leaves it up to her, not pressuring her or anything. For how selfish tom is initially.. this is a spark that shows h’es not a TERRIBLE person, just one who has some growing up to do. Marco however is not convinced and wants to go with, with Star teling him no because A) he wasn’t invited and it’d be rude to ask and B), she appricates the concerns but she can handle this, and implicily, despite her reckless nature knows this is a risk but knows if the night turns she can handle Tom, and that maybe he’s changed. Marco insists Tom can’t change.. which I find hilarious given his massive character arc to the point I had as eires ofessays planned, and one don about his growth before deciding to change formats to doing each ep of his journey instead every so often, to the point where two years on in the series timeline.. we’ve gone from Marco thinking Tom is a predator to...

But star decides to go and .. it’s clear from the subtext that while part of it is clear concern for star, Marco’s line about “it being fun here all the time” may mean that while he DOES have the best intentions.. part of him is jealousssssss. More on that in a bit.  For now we go to the underworld with the second best gag of the episode as Tom is toning down the spookiness to please star, and one of the guys in the picture at the top insults him... and when tom asks which one he says me. We sadly don’t get an answer but it’s small gags like this that made me want to do this episode by episode. Star arrives.. and things quickly go south. Tom tries giving her a corsage that’s a live spider and she rejects it. This admitely looks bad on both as Tom , living in you know, a hell dimenson probably sees it as a sweet gesture, and Star is refusing it.. but star does so POLITELY, and for understandable reasons, and Tom is still clearly pissed about it. Not long after, they line up for what’s essentially a prom photo.. and to get Carried by a bucket of unicorn blood, another nice little gag. Star refuses since well her best friend is a unicorn, one of them anyway, or at least it’s head.. and yes one of the species in this series multiverse is a bunch of headless unicorns. IT’s wonderful. And star also notices tom needs his anger managment bunny and is clearly pissed about it when, having dated her for several months, clearly should’ve KNOWN this might bother her.  That’s really tom’s problem here: He wants everything his way on his terms and only compromises if he thinks it’ll get star to do things with him. He’s made the PRETENSE of changing.. but he really dosen’t WANT to yet. He just wants her back and wants to change just enough to get her back so he can stop trying again. He also may , due to the underworld being diffrent and a place where being covered in a bucket of blood is a time honored tradition instead of the thing that turns a young mutant into a mass murderer, and yes I think a carrie x-men crossover would be the shit. He probably dosen’t GET that star wouldn’t like a spider corasge or bathing in her best friends blood.. but the problem isn’t that. that’s culture shock, that can be bridged with some talk.. the problem is tom dosen’t want to talk, he just wants her to do what he wants and things to be all cool and to get his way. Being a prince with two loving parents, we’ll meet them soon enough just not this episode, and tons of servants, I get the impressionf rom this and other episodes tom simply isn’t USED to not getting what he wants.He’s not USED to being told “No”, and thus has no way to deal with it healthily and isntead lashes out like an angry toddler. It dosen’t make his actions RIGHT but it does make them more understandable and makes it so Tom’s later growth FEELS natural depsite some of his sketchier actions beforehand. 

Back at Marco’s house, Marco is depressed eating nachos in a sumbrero.. which if I had corn chips, cheese and a sombrero would probably be my daily life right about now. It’s then we get a WEIRD dropped bit, as Marco hears a weird piratey voice telling him the blood moon is the moon for lovers and stuff. This is IMPLIED to be his monster arm, from an earlier episode.. but it’s.. never explained. Whatever it was going to be was dropped. Which would be fine if the blood moon itself and the end of this episode didn’t get a full explination in season 4 with the writers clearly going back to it to resolve the dangling thread.. but still not explaning the spooky voice. I mean what was it? Marco’s pirate ancestor? the sea captain from the simpsons? the monster arm? terry that bastard? Burt Macklin FBI? Old Man Withers the guy who runs the amusment park? Dirk Dastardely? A sentient payphone? The alps? Tell us damn you! Okay that tangent aside Marco decides to party crash at the advice of the ominous voice.. seriously is it Flintheart Glomgold? Nevermind. Back at the ball star is bonding with a small skeletal fish int he magma punch whent his random asshole comes up and whines for a good minute,if hilariously so, about the ball being changed.

He’s feels, looks and acts like the combination of those morons who were mad adora wasn’t “as hot” in the she ra reboot and was aged down to a teenager and the threw it on the ground guy.  After that interlude, tom shoos away a guy asking star to dance and the guy makes vauge comments about tom wanting his and star’s souls to be link while making kissy nosies. Before Tom can explain what he means by that, or at least lie about what he means by that, the blood moon is about the drop, the lights turn red and tom walks off because he wants the music to be perfect. And then Marco arrives in his really damn cool calevara outfit. Which fair play, I can see why, besides ship reasons, it gets a lot of art: it looks really damn neat.  Speaking of shipping.. it’s time. Star, not realizing it’s marco, dances with him.. quite romantically in fact. It’s here that the show conciously starts Shipping star and marco together. Starco is born, and the scnee is really good: romantic, well animated, jsut great all around. While the ship would .. end up done rather poorly and lead to some really terrible stuff at the time.. it wasn’t abd and already shipping them I loved this and even now, even knowing what woudl come later... it’s not a bad sequence. The only bad thing is what would come later, but I can’t fault the writers of THIS EP for what they would do in a LATER ONE. That’s just not fair. The ship wasn’t bad to start and the later arc springing from it in season 2 would be good.. it just quickly went in bad directions as the series went on , then disappeared, then how it finallyc ame about was just awful. But as much as I want to.. I can’t blame the sequence on this. It didn’t create rabid shippers or poor writing, it was just good and deserves to be praised as such.  Naturally tom takes this about as well as me when I found out HBO max wouldn’t be on roku at launch and prepares to murder Marco.. and promptly gets frozen by star who decides to wisely get out of there. It’s a ncie moment.. and  reminder that Star is crazy powerful, as is the wand itself, because as we’ll see later, tom is no slouch himself in the power department, but even if her attack was from behind, she still stopped him in one move.  So Star takes marco home and dresses him down for sneaking in, understandbly so: while it was an iffy situation, Star knew who she was dealing with and as shown at the end, was strong enough that tom was no threat to her, and given what we learn later, Tom’s parents would likely never let her come to real harm. For all her reckless decision making, Star thought this one out and Marco shoudl’ve repsectied that and didn’t for his own reasons. To his credit though he apologizes, Star admits to liking the dance, then the two speak in unison a few times, and we wont’ get followup on that till the last season! Roll credits. I don’t have the credits for this episode so enjoy this instead:

Final Thoughts: Blood Moon Ball is a spectacular ep. A good plot, a great introduction for tom, and great animation and humor really make the episode pop and it’s nice to get our first look at the underworld and tom himself. Tom would be back, and i’ll be back to tom eventually, but on it’s own the episode is really good and it’s standout sequence still holds up even as starco ended up in the sewer quality wise. All in all a great ep and a great starting point if you haven’t watched the show yet.  Coming Soon: A return to Star in the near future probably since Tom is great and his second ep deserves love too, as do several other star eps, as well as a look at the saluna episodes of the loud house because i’m in a gay mood for obvious reasons, and a loud house mood for less obvious reasons. Until then, feel free to hit me up with asks with suggestions or commisosns for future reviews, and until next time, later days. 

#star vs the forces of evil #star butterfly #marco diaz #tom lucitor #startom #starco #animation #shipping #she ra #rider strong #blood moon #blood moon ball

[fixxofvixx]

CHASING HONGBIN - CHAPTER 10

Hello! I finally finished a new Hongbin chapter~ Just a bit of fluff and mystery! I hope you enjoy it!

Let me know what you think and thank you for reading!

🦊🦊🦊🦊🦊🦊

You finally gave up and curled into him. You did trust him. It was just really hard to say out loud. He continued gliding his fingers through your hair until you fell asleep. He waited until your breathing evened out before he stopped. When he knew you were

asleep, he stopped and wrapped his arms around you. He had no intention of letting go. Now, or in the future. He looked down at your face still tight with worry even in your sleep. He vowed to change that.

"I will make sure you're safe."

----------------------------

Hongbin picked up your sleeping form and slowly carried you to the bedroom. He prayed that you wouldn't wake up. He wanted you to be comfortable and sleep. If you were to wake, your heartbeat would rise in that tell-tale sign of fear that he made his mission to erase. Of course, your heart didn't give off as much fear as it used to when he was around but it was still there. All because of the species he just so happened to be. How long would it take for it to change? How long until it picked up in excitement or affection? He wasn't usually an impatient person but for some reason you had changed all that.

The spot was still sore from where he'd been cut with that knife. But the feeling paled in comparison to what he'd felt when you had clung to him as the other fox had threatened you. Perhaps you thought you had chosen the lesser of two evils but he hoped not. You said you trusted him and he wasn't about to break that trust.

He laid you on the bed and froze when you opened your eyes slowly. Sure enough, your heart sped up in fear. You froze as well but relaxed slightly when you realized that the orange eyes staring at you were Hongbin's.

"What are you doing?"

"I thought you might sleep better in the bed so I brought you in here. You've been asleep for a couple of hours."

"Oh, thank you, then. I'm sure that was uncomfortable for you."

"Of course not, I had my very own stuffed bunny to cuddle with." You stared at him, surprised at his words. He chuckled and sighed. "Sorry, I usually hate cheesy things like that."

Hongbin straightened up and started to walk out the door.

"Where are you going to be?"

"Now that I think about it, that should depend on you. I can go back to my apartment down the hall or I can sleep on the couch. Where do you want me to be?"

"I'm sure the couch would be hard to sleep on. You should sleep in your own bed. I'll be fine."

"What did I tell you about lying?" Hongbin stuck his hands in his pockets and leveled a stare at you. His aura didn't give off any anger but he seemed agitated. You felt the need to defend yourself.

"I'm not!"

Hongbin walked back to your bed and sat down next to you. He raised his hand and placed it on the vein just under your neck. His touch caused your heart to skip a bit.

"Now, since you don't believe my hybrid ability to hear your heartbeat, I'll listen like this. So, tell me again. Where do you want me to be?"

"You can go back to your own apartment." You focused on keeping your heartbeat level but you knew you had failed. You had no idea why you allowed him to do this. There was no way you would be comfortable with any other fox hybrid touch you.

"Are you sure?" You nodded, not trusting your voice.

If you were honest with yourself, where you really wanted him to be was with you on the couch again, stretched out beside you.

"Okay, if that's what you want. Sleep as much as you can, alright?"

You nodded again and gave him your best smile. He walked out of the bedroom and soon after, you heard the door shut. As soon as he had walked out of the bedroom, you lowered your senses as low as they could go. You didn't want to hear his heartbeat from down the hall. You would never be able to sleep. You sighed and reprimanded yourself. Who were you kidding? There was no way you were going to be able to sleep here. You slid out of bed and stretched. The best sleep you'd had in months was just a few moments ago and now it was gone.

You had no idea why but your vision started getting blurry. Reaching up, you found tears on your fingers. Why were you crying? And why did your heart seem to think that Hongbin could make it all better? He was a fox. He was the enemy. But you automatically gravitated towards him. Secretly, you knew the reason. He was kind and trustworthy. Something you didn't find in many people, especially fox hybrids. Yes, you trusted him. He had proven himself time and time again. He'd even suffered a life-threatening knife wound at your expense. You didn't fear him any longer but now there was a different form of anxiety that you felt when he was around. He was a fox hybrid but you couldn't help but see him as just a man. And now, you'd turned away from him. You gave up on trying to stop the tears.

You walked out of the bedroom and immediately screamed.

There, with his body propped up against the front door, was Hongbin. The smirk on his face made him look confident and sexy.

Wait......sexy?

You blinked to make sure he was actually there. Had he not left?

"I knew it."

"H-Huh?"

"I knew you were lying. You said you'd be fine but you had no intention of sleeping, did you? Y/N, just tell me if something's wrong. I can help you. I'm not a baby."

Well, that was for damn sure. If anyone saw him as a baby, they needed to seek professional help.

"You're crying? Why?"

You looked down at the floor in an attempt to hide your face.

"I, uh, stubbed my toe on the bed."

"Really? I didn't hear you say anything."

"I was afraid to make too much noise." Oh my god, this was getting worse. It was no use lying to him.

"Too much noise? But no one was here? You didn't even know I was here so who would you disturb? You still think of me as a threat, don't you?"

"No, I don't!" You raised your head and shook it back and forth to emphasize your answer.

Hongbin strode towards you and you backed up a step. He smiled and crossed his arms over his chest.

"Not a threat, huh? Do you have any idea what that does to a predator species?"

"What are you talking about?"

"Backing away like that. With that deer in the headlights look you get." He came forward another step but this time you didn't move. "Good, stay like that. Don't move. Don't run."

Finally Hongbin made it to where you were standing and stood only inches from you. He uncrossed his arms and cupped his hands over your cheeks.

"Don't run from me, Y/N. It makes me want to chase you down and devour you. But, in a good way."

Your eyes widened as he leaned forward and his lips touched yours slightly. It could barely be classified as a kiss but it did calm your nerves. Being able to touch him and knowing he was close helped more than you could ever explain.

When he leaned back, his eyes had changed to a caramel honey color. You furrowed your eyebrows at the unusual shade.

"My eyes?" You nodded and he smiled. "It's the color my eyes take when I absorb something."

"W-What did you absorb?" You were almost afraid to ask but felt comfortable asking.

"Your fear. I can't take it completely away but I can ease it. I can absorb any feeling you don't want. I can take away anger, fear, and even happiness. Although I would never take the latter."

"Can all foxes do that?"

"None that I have encountered. Just like my ability to persuade, it seems to be rare."

You broke eye contact with him and just stared, unseeing, at his chest. You did feel different and it wasn't bad.

"Y/N? Are you okay? I'm sorry, I should have asked first." He smoothed a few pieces of hair away from your face and you looked up at him again.

"No.....no, it's okay. I just.....feel weird."

"Weird how?"

"I don't know. I can't describe it. It's almost like I feel......content."

"I took your fear, y/n. I can't give you a different feeling but I can take one away. It doesn't last forever unfortunately. It will be just for the time being but I can always do it again." The side of his mouth lifted in half a grin.

"D-Do...do you have to kiss me each time?"

"Do you want me to?"

"I....um...." There was no way in hell you were going to answer what you were truly thinking.

"It's okay, you don't have to answer that. No, I don't have to kiss you everytime. But touch is required. From now on, I will wait for you to allow it. You only have to ask."

"Thank you."

"Y/N, look at me."

You raised your eyes to meet his and then he smiled.

"Don't worry about anything else. Relax and enjoy your time here. I'll help you find a job and place to stay. But, for right now, you need to sleep. If you have no objections, I'll sleep on the couch. I'm honestly too lazy to go to my apartment anyway. Deal?"

"Are you sure? I mean--"

"Y/N, I wouldn't offer if I wasn't okay with it. But, this is your decision. If you want me here, just say so."

"I want you here."

"Good, because I want to be here. Now, go sleep. I'll be in here if you need me."

With a nod you turned back to the bedroom and settled into the bed. With your senses turned back up, you could hear Hongbin's heartbeat and his light movements. It put your heart at ease. Once you laid your head on the pillow, it was only moments before you fell asleep.

A couple of hours later, Hongbin opened your door and peeked in. He heard your rhythmic breathing and steady heartbeat. He now kicked himself for taking you to your bed. If he had just listened to his heart instead of his head, you'd most likely still be beside him.

On the other hand, because you had woken and came back out to the living room, he was fortunate enough to steal a small kiss. He'd been aching to do just that ever since he'd first kissed you. And now he had revealed something else he was capable of. He had just omitted the part where there was a reason he could take away your feelings.

You had no idea how unique you were. You needed to know but you also needed to feel at home first. He would explain in time and hopefully you would forgive him for not telling you sooner. He smiled to himself as he walked back to the couch. He had always teased Wonshik and Taekwoon about being so possessive of their wives. Now, he understood that feeling all to well.

#vixx fic #Hongbin fic #hybrid hongbin #fox hongbin #hybrid vixx

[katrinawritesthings]

Jonghyun/Taemin; A Year of Sunsets (Part 4/5); PG

He wishes his first encounter with a shapeshifter wasn’t while he was half awake and half fucking terrified of being eaten in the dead of night. He’s certain that he wouldn’t be nearly this freaked out if he didn’t take a nap by accident. The disorientation is fucking with him. Maybe he can kinda… just….

“Hey,” he calls out softly towards the bushes.

ao3

1-2-3-4-5

Taemin is just getting ready to head out to the upper east side of the lake to paint a sunset from a different angle when he hears the wolves start howling. It makes him pause as he’s tugging his backpack over his shoulders. He glances up at the sky, at where the sun is still at least an hour from setting and the faded shadow of moon that he can see isn’t even close to full. He kind of wants to take a snap of this to send to Kibum to prove that all of his old wolf clichés are untrue, but he doesn’t want to get it out of his backpack. He shrugs after a moment, fitting his easel and canvas more securely under his arm and locking his door behind him.

When he reaches the shore of the lake, he pauses again. He was going to head north and east, but he remembers Jonghyun saying that the wolves all lived more northwest instead. He glances quickly each way before heading left. If he’s going to be out here while they’re singing, he wants to be closer to them.

Thankfully, when he reaches the corner of the lake he finds that someone’s set up some comfy looking camp chairs up on the shore. Probably that other neighbor Jonghyun told him about one time that’s always fishing over here and likes to keep to themself even more than Taemin does. They’re not here right now to yell at Taemin, so he sits himself down all snug and comfortable and sets up his easel in the sand.

It’s at least half an hour before the sun will be low enough for him to guesstimate the general tone of his painting; half an hour in which he sits back, relaxes, watches the soft waves shift over the shore, and attempts to send a snap video of the forest and the wolves singing to Kibum before he gives up and resolves to send it when he gets back home where he actually has service.

He has no idea how it happens, but somehow he fades from closing his eyes and enjoying the wind ruffling through his hair to snapping his eyes open half a second before he falls out of his chair into the sand.

He groans, curling into a little ball before struggling to push himself up to his knees. What the fuck. He wasn’t even tired. He doesn’t deserve this. He squeezes his eyes shut to rub accidental sleep out of them, then opens them to darkness. He frowns, confused, closes them again and reopens them, panics because he can’t see anything, and then understands.

It’s a little bit too late for him to paint his sunset tonight, he thinks. He turns to squint at the sky. At least the moon and the stars give him a tiny bit of light, once his eyes adjust. He feels up his pockets for his phone, and when he taps the flashlight app, he winces at how fucking bright it is. He knew he should've spent the extra few minutes looking for that one fancy flashlight app he used to have with all of the different settings when he switched phones last year. He shines it over the grainy pebbles of the shore until he finds his bag. Then he fumbles for the zipper and shoves his arm in there until he finds the big flashlight Jonghyun gave him.

That light is even brighter, and he groans again when he flicks both on. His phone tells him that it’s almost midnight before he puts it back into his pocket and he sighs. He really fucked up. He’s gonna have to paint two things tomorrow and his sleep schedule is going to be so off and--and he jumps when his light shines through the trees for a second and illuminates two bright circles low to the ground.

“Frick,” he whispers as the shadow connected to those eyes darts away with a rustle into the bushes. It’s a soft, quiet noise, but it’s still heavy, the only sound other than the slow wind through the trees and soft splishes of the lake. The wolves have stopped their howling and it’s almost eerie how loud the silence is now without them. Taemin reaches for his bag without taking his eyes off of the place where the eyes disappeared, jumpy and paranoid to be out here in the middle of the night. He tries to think of what it could have been; bunnies or deer or whatever other skittish creatures would be no problem, but if it was a predator….

He tries to think back to what Jonghyun told him about the forest a few weeks ago. He’s sure he mentioned something on whether or not the wolves were the only predators around here, but he can’t for the life of him remember. Still, though. He feels like a big cat of some sort wouldn’t attack him if he was aware and he feels like a bear would be considerably larger than the eyes he saw. He’s probably fine. He tells himself this, over and over, as he quickly gathers up his easel and canvas and shines his light up the shore to find the path. He still shivers under his sweater from the uneasy chill that raises goosebumps over his skin.

As he’s trudging back up to the little dirt road, another rustle comes from the bushes and he flinches. This time he catches a bushy tail flicking out of the beam of his light. He breathes a tiny fraction easier. That was definitely a wolf tail. Fuck. He wishes his first encounter with a shapeshifter wasn’t while he was half awake and half fucking terrified of being eaten in the dead of night. He’s certain that he wouldn’t be nearly this freaked out if he didn’t take a fucking nap by accident. The disorientation is fucking with him. Maybe he can kinda… just….

“Hey,” he calls out softly towards the bushes. “Um. If you’re, like, friendly, or like--not going to eat me, can you just. Bark. Twice. Or something. In the gentlest way possible. Please. I mean, I know you’re not, but I’m just--I’m really anxious right now and--”

A soft, soft, soft, gentle whuff cuts him off. Two whuffs. Taemin has never been more happy to hear a dog noise in his life. He’s still jumpy, but the reassurance lets him relax enough to take a deep breath and start walking again. This isn’t the end of the world. He knew, before he moved here, that something like this was going to happen eventually. Getting lost in the woods at night was practically inevitable. He’s not even lost; he’s just out way too late. It’s about a half hour walk back home. He’s not looking forward to it at all, but it’s not like he can just fall asleep in the dirt all night.

“Okay, Tae, you can do this,” he tells himself. “You’re not gonna be brutally murdered in the woods in the middle of the night.” He holds his easel to his chest and squints across the lake to see if he can see the glow of the porch light that he left on. He can’t. “You’re a feelgood comedy, not a murder thriller,” he sighs. “You’re gonna keep walking and get home and fall asleep in your nice warm bed and keep loving your wonderful life and--”

Another rustle from the bushes cuts his reassurances off. He glances at the trees to his right with a wince. Fuck. The wolf is still following him.

“Stop talking to yourself,” he snaps at himself. “They’re gonna think you’re fucking weird--fuck.” He closes his eyes for a moment to grimace at the sky. How can he make such a bad first impression all by himself like this? “Please don’t think I’m weird,” he whines at the forest. This probably isn’t helping him. “I’m Taemin,” he says in the general direction of where he thinks the wolf is. “I moved into the forest like half a year ago? And I paint sunsets to sell on the internet.”

He doesn’t really know why he’s introducing himself to a random wolf that was apparently spying on him while he slept. Probably because it makes it easier to keep walking. He hopes they’re still following him and listening to him speak. Pretending that they’re escorting him back to his house with their fangy protection makes it easier to keep walking too.

“I’m friends with Jonghyun,” he offers to the trees. “I don’t know if you know him--he lives by me and goes out camping a lot and he says he’s seen you guys chilling around out there.” He’s sure that if Jonghyun has seen the wolves then he wolves have seen him. That just makes sense. “He’s pretty cool,” he mumbles. He stumbles on a rock in the path and scrunches his face as he bravely takes bigger steps to act like he didn’t. Then he scrunches his face for a different reason. “I mean, when I say he’s my friend, I mean. I hope he’s my friend,” he says. He doesn’t know how Jonghyun feels. Maybe he’s just a nice neighbor to Jonghyun and they’re not friends yet in his book.

“I fucking… jerked him off a few months ago, I better be his friend,” he mutters. He has to be, honestly. You don’t jerk someone off in the middle of a blizzard and not be friends after that. “Anyway,” he says quickly, shaking his head and glancing to his side. He can still vaguely see the wolfy shape silently following him through the trees. That’s nice. He hasn’t driven them off and he hasn’t been left alone. “Jonghyun told me you were all rad and nice,” he tells the wolf. “And I hear y’all howling a lot. It’s really pretty.” He hopes he’s making a good impression with all of this rambling flattery. He wants this one wolf to like him and to bring back a good story of him to all of their wolf friends.

He’s getting closer to his house, he thinks; if he shines his light right, he can see the fork in the road between the curve of the lake and the path back to his place. He should start driving out to his paint locations, honestly, if they’re gonna take him this long to get back. If he’s feeling tired before he leaves he definitely will so something like this doesn’t happen again.

He makes himself walk the rest of the way in silence, holding his flashlight tightly and glancing into the trees every so often to make sure the wolf hasn’t left him alone. He’s not exactly at ease with them there following him from the shadows, but he knows he would be even more anxious if they weren’t. He likes the feeling of safety the company gives him. At least now if he does get brutally murdered by a serial killer or something then someone will know what happened to him. He hopes whichever wolf this is wouldn’t mind taking a day or two as a human to fill out some paperwork for his death.

“Okay, Tae, stop fucking thinking about death,” he mutters to himself. That shit isn’t going to help at all. He needs to just. Think about getting home and getting a snack and going to sleep in his very warm, very comfy, very safe bed. Yes.

Eventually, the dim glow of his porch light becomes visible down the path. He breathes a soft sigh of relief at the visual confirmation, hikes his bag more over his shoulders, and walks a little faster. Behind his house, he can see a faint plume of chimney smoke curling up from Jonghyun’s and tsks. Shit. He probably could have just texted him and asked for a ride, since he’s apparently still up so late. Bluh. Whatever. At least now he’ll know that for next time.

As he approaches his house and the wide clearing in front of it, he notices the silence of the forest soften just slightly. He stops in the middle of the road in front of his front porch to glance back at the trees. Oh. Right. The wolf probably isn’t going to just prance into plain sight after spending so long hiding. He steps tiredly the rest of the way up to his front door and wiggles his hand into his pocket for his keys.

Pushing the front door in and dropping his bag just inside, he takes a moment before going in himself to lean up on the wall and squint out at the trees. He doesn’t see--no, he does. The faintest movement in the low bushes and two big eyes peeping at him from the leaves. He smiles to see them still there.

“Thank you,” he calls softly. He hesitates, frowns at his low volume, but shakes himself of the doubt. Wolves have good hearing. He doesn’t need to repeat himself. “It was nice to meet you,” he adds, and then, for lack of any better ideas, “Good night.”

One quiet, soft, friendly whuff answers him before the eyes disappear and he hears the wolf rustling away through the leaves.

~

Taemin puffs his lips up as he stands behind his back door, rocking on his toes as he debates on whether or not to go outside yet. Guh. This is so stressful. He never should have asked Jonghyun to come over last night. He doesn’t need help figuring out his garden structure. He’s pretty sure that he could have muddled through it on his own. He doesn’t need Jonghyun to come figure it out with him and he doesn’t need to be having a mini panic attack before noon.

He just. Doesn’t know if sitting outside and watching Jonghyun walk all the way up through the woods and too him would be more awkward than waiting for him to knock and opening the door. He doesn’t know which one would be worse and he hates it. He opens and closes his hands into little fists at his sides as he argues with himself for the fifth minute straight.

Bluh. Bluh bluh bluh. He’s just. He’s just gonna go out there. He’s just going to go out there and set up all of his little work tools on his back porch table and make his brunch muffins look cute and presentable and then wander around in the half frozen dirt behind his house so it looks like he’s already doing something when Jonghyun gets here. Yeah. That’s what he’s going to do.

And so he does that. He marches his way outside, grabs all of his tools and things out from the old shed that he still hasn’t really cleaned since he moved here, scoots back inside to get his muffins, sets everything up on the porch, and shuffles out into the mud. It’s only a little mushy; it’s only just starting to thaw out. He still has a few more weeks before it’ll actually be workable. He hopes it’s ready by the first day of spring. He wants to be really dramatic and sentimental and plant his very first seed then.

He’s shuffling a shallow line around what he’s guessing will be the perimeter of his garden in the dirt when he hears footsteps coming through the trees to him. Oh. Aha. There he is. He keeps up his shuffling, staring at the ground, until he reaches the end of his porch and looks up. Jonghyun is very much closer now, smile easy and hands in his jacket pockets as he steps up to the end of the porch a few seconds after Taemin.

“Hi friend,” he says.

“Hey,” Taemin says back, and frick. This is still. Kind of awkward. He rubs his neck sheepishly, then points up to his little porch table. “I made muffins,” he says. “If you. Wanted one. They’re blueberry.”

“Ooh,” Jonghyun says, and slips around Taemin and up the small steps. “Thanks,” he says as he grabs one. Taemin nods back, scuffing the mud awkwardly under his shoe. Jonghyun takes a bite of his muffin, swallows, licks his lips, and leans on the railing of his porch, surveying his empty back yard. He takes another bite and turns his gaze to Taemin with an amused brow raised, like he knows that Taemin doesn’t know what to say and he thinks it’s cute. Hecking heck.

“So tell me what you have figured out already,” Jonghyun says after another moment, nodding at the dirt and hiding his next grin in his muffin when Taemin blushes. God. At least he’s moving the conversation along instead of just letting Taemin flounder.

“Um,” Taemin says. He gestures blandly at his empty space. “I was thinking, just, a generic square, see,” he says, pointing out his faint outline. “And I know what I wanna plant, and when in the year, but I have to figure out, like, how to fit everything in…. I figured out the soil quality and bought fertilizer and I’ve been composting since I moved here…. I’m not entirely sure? What I’m going to do about, like, bunnies and squirrels and shit,” he mumbles. He hasn’t really thought that part through yet. “But, I mean, I’ll figure that out.”  He shrugs weakly and looks back up at Jonghyun. He’s staring seriously back out at the empty space now, thoughtfully tapping the remaining half of his muffin against his bottom lip.

“You can build a little wall,” he says. “Around the perimeter.” He points around the outline as well. “It won’t keep the critters out, but it’ll look cute.” He gives Taemin a little smile that Taemin snorts at. He’s not wrong.

“That’s, like, digging a trench and dealing with brick glue and levelling and doing math and shit, though,” he says, scrunching his face. “Maybe later. Not now.” He’ll build himself a little wall when he feels like suffering. “Or maybe I could make a wall out of flower boxes,” he thinks out loud. That would be cue, a little wooden, flower-topped wall. “That’s money, though.” He sighs a little pout and Jonghyun chuckles softly.

“I’ll help, if you ever do it,” he says. He finishes off his muffin and dusts crumbs off onto his pants. “So you just need me to help you figure out dimensions and shit?” he asks, looking at Taemin curiously.

“Mmhmm,” Taemin says. “There’s a tape measure on that table somewhere, and a notebook of graph paper.” He hates math but he’s planning on making everything as even and easily divisible as possible. He’s good at drawing symmetrical things. Jonghyun turns to find the stuff on the table, but before he picks it up, he turns back.

“Can I throw my jacket inside really quick?” he asks. He plucks at his dark grey jacket. “I don’t wanna get all sweaty.” His nose scrunches as he says the word and Taemin snorts.

“Yeah, it’s unlocked,” he says, waving a hand at the back door. Jonghyun shoots him a finger pistol and scoots inside. Taemin smiles fondly to himself. Jonghyun is good and cute. He’s gone inside only for a few moments, and then he comes back outside, grabs the things from the table, and then hops down the steps to join Taemin in the mud.

“So what do you want to grow?” he asks casually after a few minutes of them figuring out and marking the exact dimensions of the perimeter on the ground.

“Uh,” Taemin says. He uses the noise both to think and to stall for time as he finishes writing down the little numbers on his graph paper. “A tangerine tree, over there,” he says, pointing to the far left corner. He loves him some tiny oranges. “A plum tree in the other corner, both of them mini.” He doesn’t have the time or expendable effort to be caring for big trees. “Onions, garlic, carrots, I’m going to try potatoes once even though I’ve never succeeded at them before, watermelons, some cute flowers... a bunch of little herbs, but those will be window plants, so.” He trails off at that and rubs his nose, embarrassed to have gone off topic. Jonghyun nods encouragingly, though, as he slowly lets the tape measure coil back into itself.

“Sounds neat,” he says. “Would you mind if I came and picked some of your oranges whenever they grow?” he asks.

“Nah,” Taemin grins. If his last little tangerine tree is any indicator, he’ll have more than enough for himself once she really gets going. “Yes for the plums, though,” he says. “I am. Very greedy. For plums.” He loves his plums. Jonghyun laughs softly, shaking his head with something akin to fondness that makes Taemin feel nice. He likes when people like him. “Speaking of the trees…,” he mumbles, checking his notes on another page for how wide both of them are supposed to get. “Come measure...eight feet? Over here,” he says, wandering over to one of the corners.

“Yep,” Jonghyun says, following him and handing Taemin the little nub at the end of the measure. Taemin stands at the edge of the perimeter and waits for Jonghyun to back up to eight feet. He looks at the space between them, imagines a tree there, tries to imagine it as a wide circle with a walkable amount of space around it. He thinks that’ll be good, in theory, if he trims and grooms it right. This is just a rough outline anyway. He nods to himself and lets Jonghyun cake care of the tape measure while he sketches in the tree on the graph.

“Plum tree, too?” Jonghyun asks, taking half a step towards the other corner. Taemin glances up, nods, and shuffles over there slowly while he finishes his writing.

“Same size,” he says, taking his spot with the end of the measure in hand. They repeat that little process and Taemin sketches in the plum tree, then bites his lip and looks at the space that’s left on his graph. Hmm. He thinks maybe they should redo these measurements with his little circle measurer too. He wants to have everything really figured out before spring.

“Hey,” he says, looking up with a sudden thought. Jonghyun glances at him with a curious hum as he watches the measure. “Springs are, like, nice here, right?” Taemin asks. He’s been meaning to ask this for a while but he just kept forgetting. “Like, I’m not going to be struggling too hard, right?” He just wants a nice, easy, casual start to his garden. A few small crops and flowers to get it all rolling and get his confidence up.

“Uh,” Jonghyun says. He puffs his lips, thinks for a moment, shrugs. “I mean, I think so,” he says. “I like them, at least,” he shrugs. “I don’t really garden, but the weather is a pretty consistent warm and the rains are never too cold or too humid.” He shrugs again and Taemin hums. Alright then. That’s good.

“If it’s warm and not humid, does that mean you’re going to go camping soon then?” he asks, raising a brow when Jonghyun’s mouth curves into a sheepish grin.

“Pretty much, yeah,” he says. “I stay out the longest in spring. The pups are born around then and they sound really cute all yippy in the distance.” He bounces excitedly on his toes and Taemin snorts. Of course. Taemin likes how Jonghyun can be so predictable. He’s a simple egg on the outside, just living his life half in the forest and half super in the forest. Taemin appreciates it. He likes when the people in his life aren’t too complicated. It almost makes them easier to talk to.

“I think I want my watermelons between these two trees,” he says, backing up a few steps and gesturing between the corners. It’ll be cute. A little wiggly green patch. “So that’s… eight… from this edge.. a foot and a half between… start here?” He says it like a question, tapping a little spot on the ground. He thinks that’s right. Jonghyun obeys without question, handing him the nub of the tape measure.

“Hey, uh,” he says as he glances behind himself to back up. “Remember when we made out? Last month?” he asks. He’s avoiding eye contact, actually avoiding looking at Taemin for once, eyes over his shoulder and lip between his teeth. Taemin feels his own lips curving up into a smirk at the sight. Aw. He’s all shy about it.

“And jerked each other off on your couch during a blizzard, yeah,” he says. Yeah, he remembers it. Jonghyun backs up all the way to the far border, then steps in nine and a half feet. “What about it?” Taemin asks.

“This is fifteen feet ish,” Jonghyun mumbles, squinting at the tape. Taemin watches him for another second, highly amused, before ticking a little box and note on his graph.

“What about us making out?” he asks as Jonghyun starts stepping closer with the measure again. Jonghyun doesn’t say anything until he’s reached Taemin again, tape all safely rolled back up and gripped tightly in his hand. Then he looks up, looks down, looks back up again.

“I mean, I don’t know,” he says quietly. “I kinda liked it.” He meets Taemin’s eyes for a few seconds this time. “And I was thinking, maybe, you know, we could do it more often. Platonically. If you wanted.” He’s smiling again, a tiny little thing, and it’s nervous and hopeful. Taemin exhales a soft laugh and tucks his graph under his arm.

“I mean,” he says, and shrugs. “Wanna make out now?” he asks. Just to see if it’ll still be good. He wouldn’t mind. He liked kissing Jonghyun. “It’s been, like, ten whole minutes,” he says. “We can take a break.”

“Yeah?” Jonghyun asks. His smile is more natural now, more comfortable because of Taemin’s half-assed joke. Taemin feels mildly successful. Jonghyun takes another step closer, one hand lifting to play with the collar of Taemin’s shirt. “If you want,” he says, face so close to Taemin’s already. Taemin slides one arm around his shoulders, leans down, closes his eyes, and waits for Jonghyun to press their mouths together.

He does, softly and then firmly, his lips warm and plush just like last time in the stuffy heat of his home. Taemin pulls him closer and angles his head better into it, easily falling back into the same relaxed pace they spent so long on last month. Jonghyun sighs a soft breath against his mouth as he slips his arms around Taemin’s waist to cling loosely behind his back.

Taemin likes it; it’s simple, comfortable, but as they keep going, something just… doesn’t feel right. He doesn’t know what to with his other hand, for one. He can’t exactly hold Jonghyun with a pen and notepad in the way. He winds up tucking them to his chest between them, which probably wasn’t the best idea. Standing to kiss is awkward, and out in the middle of the forest like this, Jonghyun seems unsure as to whether or not to deepen it. He keeps pushing more into lazy, languid territory and then pulling back into soft, slow pecks. Taemin hums quietly as he curls his fingers into Jonghyun’s shirt sleeve.

“Something,” he mumbles when they break apart between two kisses. “Something feels, like.”

“Off?” Jonghyun asks, his voice an amused grin against Taemin’s lips. Taemin smiles back and nods, pulling away to lean their foreheads together.

“Maybe it’s different when we’re snuggled together on your couch in front of your fireplace under a blanket in the middle of a blizzard,” he says. Jonghyun’s quiet laugh is a puff of warm breath against Taemin’s cold skin.

“Maybe, yeah,” he says, stepping away from Taemin and taking his arms back for himself. “Oh, well,” he sighs. “Next winter, I guess.”

“Yeah, definitely,” Taemin agrees. He really did like kissing Jonghyun, when the mood and everything was right. “Maybe on my couch in my blankets in front of my fireplace next time,” he offers. He does like his own couch more than someone else’s. Jonghyun snorts, but nods, then stretches his arms out above his head. Taemin watches the flash of his cute little golden tum fondly.

“Anyway,” Jonghyun says. “What’s next, onions or whatever?” He gestures blandly at the rest of the garden space that they haven’t figured out yet. Taemin blinks, then remembers, bringing up his graph paper to check their progress.

“Uh, yeah,” he says, looking up to find Jonghyun already ready with the tape measure pulled out of his back pocket.

They finish up quickly enough, Jonghyun measuring all of Taemin’s space and Taemin marking it all down in his notepad. He’s going to map that out on his laptop later, maybe another day when he feels like it. He invites Jonghyun in for a quick glass of water before Jonghyun leaves to go back home, waving over his shoulder and taking another muffin with him. Taemin smiles as he watches him go. He’s good. Good and nice and sweet. Taemin doesn’t think he could have picked a better neighbor.

It’s not until the next morning that he notices the dark grey jacket thrown half neatly over one of his front table chairs. He pats it absentmindedly over breakfast, wondering if Jonghyun knows that he forgot it here. Hmm. If he does, he’ll come get it soon enough, and if he doesn’t Taemin is pretty sure that he’ll remember to give it to him at some point before he leaves.

Three weeks and a few days pass and neither of those happen; Taemin sits out on his back porch one night near the end of march and paints the beginnings of his little garden in the sunset with the jacket zipped up snugly around him. This time, it’s not until he notices a lack of chimney smoke from Jonghyun’s direction that he remembers that the jacket is Jonghyun’s and that it’s too late to give it back now.

After a moment of thought, he shrugs and continues his painting. It’s a very nice jacket. He’s sure that Jonghyun won’t mind him keeping it warm until he comes back.

#jongtae #jonghyun #taemin #pg #sunset a #fluff #brotp #They Do The Kissie #im lov... jongtae just.... platonically making out.... good shit meme.... #jong coming over in winter: what up im here to take like half of ur tangerines #taem: mood??? go ahead #taem doesnt grow potatoes and he is v v grumpy about it but he also can just buy potatoes whenever so he doesnt mind #he tells jong about meeting the wolf nd jongs like ! rad nd u didnt get eaten or anything and taems like uwu ye it was cool #he texts kibum too and kibums like did u get the wolfs autograph and taems like ?????? and kibums like u can have mine if u want #taems still ????? #kibum: snakes are cooler than wolves anyway #taem: u cant even shift u did it Once by accident and freaked out bc u couldnt change back for a week #kibum: do u want my autograph or not #taem: Why???????? #kibum: idk im gonna send u my autograph anyway #taem: u Continue to be more of a lil shit than me i want u to know that #kibum: thanks #AnyWay the next time theres a blizzard jongtae make out on taems couch and its Good and warm and not awkward and theyre v : )

[gretchensinister]

Burgess Wilderness Recreation Area 15/?

And so continues the story I began for the Black as Pitch Halloween event. It’s the kind of story I’m sure you know well. Five college kids, a cabin, and a state park that just doesn’t get many visitors any more… (Part 1) (Part 2) (Part 3) (Part 4) (Part 5) (Part 6) (Part 7) (Part 8) (Part 9) (Part 10) (Part 11) (Part 12) (Part 13) (Part 14)

Go. What were they doing with his backpack? There was nothing in it that mattered. Go. He wanted to shout it. He knew he should shout it. He was going to die. There was no fighting this monster. He was going to die, but maybe Tooth and Sandy could get away if they left now, that thing dragging him back probably wouldn’t hunt for hours after it took him, and they could get out of the park by then. They could get help, and they could be safe, and didn’t he want his friends to be safe?

But he couldn’t tell them to go; he was too afraid of dying alone.

***

 Tooth and Sandy pulled the tent open, the high-tech fabric billowing out in the spring breeze. “We’ll throw on three,” Sandy said.

Again, Tooth nodded. But how could it possibly work?

Throwing a tent over a cooperating person would be tricky enough. Trying to tangle up that—but they had to do something.

“One,” she said.

Two and three, she and Sandy said together. The tent soared out, and perhaps it was the presence of buckles and zippers and other such hardware on the fabric, or perhaps it was sheer, unbelievable luck, but Sandy and Tooth’s hasty plan worked as they’d intended, at first. The tent fell over the monster, covering it completely, even the hand that gripped Bunny’s foot.

For a moment, everything stopped. Without having to look at the monster, it seemed to become a lot easier to think.

But now what? Surely a monster that hunted in the dark wouldn’t have been defeated by draping some cloth on it like it was a parakeet you were trying to convince that it was nighttime.

Sandy’s mind tossed up the scenario that one of the insect or rain-repelling treatments on the tent was actually the one thing that could stop the monster, that in some horrible Shyamalanic twist it had been the damn tent all along—

“Bunny?” Tooth said.

He huffed out a breath that seemed somehow related to a laugh. “It’s not letting go,” he said. “I don’t know what it’s waiting for, but I don’t think it’s going to let go. Fuck.” He did his best to wipe blood out of his eye. “I love you guys. And…and…” His voice trembled. “You gotta get out of here. Now.”

           And then, before Tooth or Sandy could reply, Bunny was pulled under the tent. He screamed, and Sandy and Tooth reached for each other.

           “Fuck, fuck, he’s right,” Sandy said, pulling at Tooth.

           “Oh god, we should stay,” Tooth said. “He…he…”

           “He told us not to!” Sandy shouted.

           “Stop shouting, this isn’t the time,” Tooth yelled back.

           “Yes, it is!” Sandy fixed her with wild eyes. “I’ll shout if I want and I’ll keep shouting because I don’t want to hear what’s going on under that tent, and you don’t want to hear what’s going on under that tent!”

           “Oh god,” Tooth said again, and took a few heavy breaths. “Okay, okay,” she said. “Let’s go!”

           She jumped from the tree trunk, and Sandy followed.

 ***

             Though satisfying, what a strange hunt! To pause just at the end—he couldn’t remember ever having to do such a thing before. But that fabric they’d thrown over him, it had given a brief surge of relief to all of them, even his prey, making him profoundly unappetizing for several moments. His fear had returned, luckily, so everything had turned out all right in that regard, at least.

           Pitch wasn’t surprised to find that the other two were out of sight by the time he was finished with the one he caught. It was the nature of creatures to run from that which preyed upon them. But he was confident he would find them eventually. It was the nature of predators to catch their prey.

 ***

             Sandy and Tooth had started to run once they jumped down from the tree, but when the path had finally opened to the campground parking lot, they’d slowed. Despite everything that had happened, there was still something hypnotically mundane about an expanse of cracked asphalt with poky little weeds doing their poor best to dismantle it. Once they reached the center, in fact, they actually stopped to catch their breath. Sandy noticed that it took him longer to catch his breath then Tooth, and he would bet that she noticed it, too. Would she say anything about it? Probably not, but Sandy was all too aware of how many people usually survived this kind of story. And there was a reason they called the trope the final girl, not the final stoner. But come on, come on, that was no way to think. Even if there were things about this that were like a movie, this wasn’t a movie.

           “Are you ready?” Tooth asked when they were both breathing normally again. She didn’t look at Sandy while she waited for his reply, but instead swiveled her head around, staring out into the forest for any sign of the monster.

           “Yeah,” Sandy said, and then, because it was probably better to bring it up sooner rather than later, “I’m not going to be able to run all the way from here to the park entrance.”

           Now Tooth looked at him. “Yeah, well, I wouldn’t be able to do that, either,” she said. “We’re not running. We’re walking out of here. Briskly, for sure, but we are walking out, and we’re walking out together. Now, let’s go. We can get out of here. We’ll be walking through the main parking lot before we know it.”

 ***

             “First aid, food and water, a radio we just tested, and a full tank of gas,” Katherine said. “If we can’t start solving the problems we find with those things, then I’m not qualified to deal with it.”

           “Frankly, me neither,” said Luc, “but I do still have all my trail clearing and tree trimming equipment in the back.”

           “Fair enough,” Katherine said, as Luc turned the key in the ignition. She hoped, if there really was something in the woods, that she’d be able to wield a pair of garden shears against it. She didn’t want to look like a coward in front of Luc, but she’d never had to fight for her life against another person before, much less anything else.

           “We could still be wrong,” Luc said after a pause. Town was already behind them.

           “Yeah, I know,” Katherine said. She looked out the windows as farmland gave way to more and more forest. “It’s more likely that we’re wrong. We’ll get there, and those kids will either still be asleep or cooking up some greasy hangover cure breakfast.”

           “And then what about all that stuff we found?”

           “I don’t know. Maybe it’s just like seeing the man in the moon or the face on Mars. People are good at spotting patterns even when they’re not there.”

           Luc nodded, but didn’t say anything.

           “Then again,” Katherine said, “the reason we’re good at spotting patterns like that is because it’s a survival trait. Helps us spot danger.”

           “There was definitely something to spot in those papers,” Luc said. “Depending on what we find at the park, we may end up needing to confront Brick.”

           “Not looking forward to that,” Katherine said, glad when Luc didn’t ask her to elaborate. Because it was all too selfish, really. She wanted this weird, cushy job. She wanted the time it gave her. This was the kind of position that only existed because no one thought about its existence very much. Confronting Brick…well, that was rocking the boat. And if she rocked the boat she was all too likely to get capsized again.

           She wondered if she’d tell Luc that. She wondered what he’d think of her if she did.

           They’d passed entirely into forest, now, and despite the unstoppable swell of well-being that flowed into Katherine at the sight of the returning spring growth, she couldn’t forget that however much she felt like the spring woke her, there could be other things waking from hibernation that felt that pull even more strongly.

 ***

             “If, after everything that happened at night, Bunny’s greatest fear was the monster, and if that really matters to the monster, then attacking Bunny must have been pretty easy for it,” Sandy said. They’d been walking in silence for a while now.

           “Isn’t there anything else we could talk about?” Tooth asked.

           “Well,” said Sandy. “It’s the only thing I can think of right now.”

           “Hmm.” Tooth paused a moment. “That’s understandable.”

           “I honestly wish that I could think of anything else. But it doesn’t seem like it would be a good idea.”

           “Yeah, we want to completely focus on the thing that’s trying to kill us. A really fun survival trait.”

           “So…” Sandy looked out at the forest around him. It was peaceful again, but that didn’t mean anything at all. If he was by himself, he’d probably not bother to stay alert. It didn’t seem like it would make much of a difference, given what had happened so far. But if he saw the monster coming he’d be able to tell Tooth. He’d be able to warn her. That would be worth it.

           “So…sew buttons on your underwear,” Tooth said, and gave a short laugh. “Sorry. It’s what my dad would always say when I started a sentence with ‘so.’ He said it wasn’t proper English. He really wanted me to use proper English.”

           “You’ll sound good when you tell our story, then,” Sandy said, and Tooth scoffed.

           “I’ll be lucky if I can manage to form a coherent sentence after I get a chance to collapse,” Tooth said. “You’ll have to do at least some of the talking.”

           “Yeah,” Sandy said.

           “What were you going to ask?”

           “I was going to ask what you were afraid of,” said Sandy.

           “Ah,” Tooth said. She chewed on her lip as she walked on a little more in silence. “I…in terms of, like, what’s my phobia, what’s my weakness as a supervillain, nothing really stands out. Maybe I’m a little claustrophobic, but…”

           “But it seems like that would be a little bit difficult to manage outside?”

           “I was going to say that,” Tooth said, “but then I thought about it dragging me off to a cave or something like that. I guess that wouldn’t fit with what it’s done so far—it seems to want to make us afraid before it attacks. But I sure don’t want to start making assumptions about how that thing is going to act.”

           Sandy nodded.

           Tooth sighed. “Claustrophobia, and all I want right now is to be indoors somewhere, with a whole bunch of people around.”

           “Who wouldn’t, in this situation?” Sandy put his hands in his pockets. “I feel like Mary’s Market is some mystical promised land now.”

           “God, it hasn’t even been twenty-four hours since we were there, buying doughnuts,” Tooth said. “What the hell is it going to be like to look back on this?”

           “It’s probably going to suck,” Sandy said.

           Tooth made a sound of agreement. “That’s the other thing I’m afraid of, you know,” she said. “I’m afraid of losing my memories. Alzheimer’s, specifically. My grandma died of it. She lived in India, you know, so even though she had it for a long time, the time between my visits meant that it seemed there was a huge and horrible amount of change every time I saw her.” Tooth pressed her lips together. “If that thing wants to wait until I’m truly terrified, it can wait until it seems like I’m getting Alzheimer’s. By then, I probably wouldn’t give a crap and I’d be glad of a quick death.”

           “Well,” Sandy said, after a pause, “if it’s all the same to you, I’d just as soon hope that the monster can’t play that kind of long game. When we’re out of the woods, I want to be out.”

 ***

             “The small human is different, I think,” said Pitch Black. “They do not fear in the same way as the others.”

           “What does this mean for your hunt?” Sarah asked. “No. For both your hunts—prey hunt and companion hunt?”

           “I do not know,” Pitch said.

           “Both humans are going towards the edge of our territory,” Sarah said. “There is one other fallen tree in the way, but that is all.”

           Now, it wasn’t really all. Pitch knew that Sarah had the power to call plants to do her bidding, but if she wasn’t counting that power at present, Pitch wouldn’t bring it up. Sarah was his young. He should not rely on her in his hunts. He would be glad to show her that she could rely on him, whether in avenging the hurts done to her or in choosing a proper companion for his desired purpose.

           “They still won’t be able to escape,” Pitch said. “Will you come with me to stalk them? I may be glad to talk to you as I make more observations of the small human.”

           Sarah called her hair back to her and lifted her feet from the soil. “Yes, I will,” she said, “and as we go, you will explain to me how to create a being like us from a human.”

 ***

             “So, what are you afraid of?” Tooth said. “What should I look for if it tries to come for you?”

           “I knew you would ask me after I asked you,” Sandy said, “but it’s a hard question for me, too. I was afraid of loud noises when I was little, but I’m more chilled out now. I have chemical assistance, true…”

           “Wait, you’ve been smoking this whole time to self-medicate for anxiety?”

           Sandy shrugged. “Well, I also enjoy being high. I don’t have a tragic backstory or anything. Well, aside for this. This weekend could be a pretty tragic backstory for the rest of my life.”

           “Yeah,” Tooth said. “Yeah.”

           “But that doesn’t mean I’m not afraid of anything,” Sandy said. “Actually…I haven’t told anyone this, but I think I should tell it now. I’m afraid…I’m afraid of being alone. Not like, not being around people all the time, but like…unloved. I’m afraid that as an adult I’ll be alone and unloved my whole life, even when I’m really old. I’m afraid I’m inherently unlovable. Strange. Repulsive. Just plain nasty.”

           “What?” Tooth said. “But Sandy…god, this is that annoying thing to say, I know, but you’ve always struck me as incredibly confident. You aren’t shy, or, like, ashamed or anything…and you’re not gross.”

           “Sure I am,” Sandy said. “I’m pan, which is suspect in the first place, and then, I don’t even have the courtesy to look like Jack Harkness. You don’t have to reply. I know this is a ridiculous conversation to have while we’re being stalked by a monster.”

           “No, it’s not like any other topics would be better,” Tooth said. “And…I don’t know, I don’t know what to say. I wouldn’t be your friend if I thought you were nasty. I wouldn’t have cuddled up to you all night if I thought you were repulsive.”

           “Well, it sounds so logical when you put it like that,” Sandy said. “But that was just a platonic thing,” he went on, wistfully.

           “Every freaking thing I do is a platonic thing,” Tooth said.

           “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Sandy said. “I wasn’t thinking, I don’t want you to feel uncomfortable, especially now. I didn’t mean anything by it.”

           “Oh, Sandy,” Tooth said. “I wasn’t annoyed with you, I was annoyed with myself.”

           “Oh,” Sandy said. “Oh.” They walked on a little farther. “I hope you can let go of that feeling. What you’re talking about, it’s not a bad thing.”

           “Your parents probably don’t have a list of six hundred people they expect to invite to your wedding,” Tooth said. “Anyway, that’s part of why I’m completely comfortable around you. You know a lot about how much bullshit is in social conventions. You’re positive.”

           “It’s nice to be comfortable for a friend,” Sandy said. “The thing is, I know very well that my positivity isn’t natural. I mean, my body positivity, my queer positivity—it’s hard to do any of that without being very aware that most people are negative about those things. And someday…I don’t just want to be comfortable. I don’t just want to be okay with the way I am. I don’t just want to be valid.” Sandy scoffed at himself.

           “What do you want, then?” Tooth asked.

           “I want someone to want me without any ‘despites,’” Sandy said. “I want someone to look at me and hardly know how they’re going to survive the desire they have for me. I want to stop feeling like I have to prove myself. I want to be completely generic, too, like I was when I was a little kid.” He grimaced. “Don’t worry, Tooth. I know that one’s wrong. As for everything else, well, fuck, that’s not such a tall order, is it?” He scoffed again. “Do you know why I was so into monsters? I was into monsters because it’s easier for me to imagine a monster feeling that way about me than a person. A monster wouldn’t have any idea what a human was supposed to look like, so they wouldn’t see me failing to live up to a standard. With a monster I could be myself. And since they wouldn’t be human, I wouldn’t have to worry how they felt about their place in the world of human beauty standards, either.” Sandy chuckled. “I’ll probably still be into monsters after all this is said and done. That’s pretty nuts, right?”

           “Maybe,” Tooth said. “But I think I’m going to be pretty nuts after all this, too. Wanting to have sex with monsters isn’t the weirdest way you could come out of this, especially considering you were into it before.”

           “Well, thanks,” said Sandy. “I’ll tell you what, though. I probably won’t go for anyone with a design that reminds me of what we’ve seen of this monster so far.”

           “Now, see, that’s absolutely, remarkably sane,” said Tooth. “And for what my uninformed opinion is worth, I think you’ll be just fine holding out for a human. I’ll tell them how you kept me from cracking up out here. They’ll be very impressed.”

           Sandy smiled. “Thanks, Tooth.”

#blackaspitch #sanderson mansnoozie #toothiana #bunnymund #Pitch Black #seraphina #katherine #nightlight #rise of the guardians #rotg #fic #if you like it consider reblogging #I live and breathe for comments

[xaeneron]

On Path of Fire

I haven’t done one of these in a while (or rather I wrote them and then forgot to post them lel), so maybe I’ll actually post this one for the new GW2 expansion after spending the week running around.

Overall, I found the expansion to be pretty solid; the maps are beautiful, the mounts are hilarious and well-implemented, the story was interesting and decently paced, and I’m still experimenting with the new elite specs.  Massive spoilers below the cut!

Questions on anything I wrote, thoughts of your own?  Feel free to boop me; I know I wrote a lot.  

But really, don’t say I didn’t warn you.  There are a LOT of bullet points beneath that cut.  xD

On the maps

Obligatory: they are huge.  It’s fitting since they were designed against HoT’s verticality and more geared towards the use of mounts, so it’s more of an observation, less of a complaint.  There’s a lot of detail and a lot of little things here and there, and it’s incredibly fun to see what you can get away with using mounts to get around the terrain.

That being said I do miss the verticality of HoT maps.  Maybe a combination of both pls? :3

I kind of wish there were more large obvious meta events, but I haven’t gotten to see all of the sort of meta events that go on in the PoF zones. I do think the large metas add replay value, but again a balance is a good thing.

We spur-of-the-moment yolo’ed the Ruptured Heart meta with 11 people.  It was actually pretty fun.  Also so many cannonades ;-;

Hearts feel like they take just a little bit too long.  Some of them are amusing, but when trekking through zones doing map comp (or redoing hearts to get collection items) they drag on a bit.  Guild chatter about hearts was fantastic though:

“These nobles are useless.  What should I do with the chamber pot, throw it off the side or throw it at one of them?”

“I’m throwing flowers at people and making them happy?”

“Matchmaker heart best heart.”

Bounties are hilariously fun?  Sometimes you get unfortunate bullshit combinations of modifiers (anti-stacking fleas + pls stack in the bubble to actually be able to hit the boss mob, I’m looking at you), but overall they’re quite fun.  We spent a good few hours trekking through all five zones murdering things and getting murdered.

These actually look super promising for replayability; our goal/challenge as a group has always been to optimize and work together, so it should be fun to go track down bounties and see what kind of dumb shenanigans we can get up to.

I actually find these really fun in small groups of 5-10.  Zergs sound...unfun.  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

The caffeinated skritt is...kind of annoying.  Mostly because it doesn’t operate like the treasure mushroom in HoT and you have to be on the class you want the collection item on, and the maps are so large someone could trigger a chest and no one would be the wiser.

A tip though for people wanting to complete multiple collections: you only need to loot the last bag it drops.  If you’re wandering around with friends and they’re nice enough to chill at the bag, you can reload with other characters and grab the bag again for another collection item (until it despawns).  I have no idea if this was intended, but I burned a few TP to friends on this for the lulz.

I had a lot of GW1 feels running through these maps, especially going down to the Desolation and Vabbi.  I appreciate that these places still exist but have changed with the years, and it’s nice to see what happened.  

Although Vabbi is one weird-ass place now.

BUUUUUUT Zomoros’ lair was hilarious.

I haven’t explored for the sake of exploring in a very long time and it was really, really nice.

CHOYA PINATA.

On the elite specializations

I haven’t actually gotten to try all of them yet, but I’m also not super enthused about all of them (Spellbreaker, I’m looking at you).  Also a gentle reminder that my opinions are mainly based on my background as a PvE player and moreso as a raider.  Also they’re just initial opinions.  Opinions change.  

I started with thief (duh), and proceeded to do the entire story with Daredevil.  I’m not particularly a fan of Deadeye; I appreciate the archetype but I don’t really see rifle having a place with a game designed more around active response in combat.  Also as someone who still can’t shake the seaweed salad dance, rifle just feels really static and dull to me.  But we’ll see.  Maybe I’ll have to make the Predator hue. D/D Deadeye also felt strange, so idk.  But we’ll keep fiddling with it.

Mirage still feels kind of odd but I need to get poor Naois the spec since he’s actually specced for condi, unlike Eet.  It seems like an upgrade to condi mesmer, and the triple blink is hilarious.

I really hope Scourge ends up with some sort of place.  Initial benchmarks look hilarious (but then, so did Soulbeast/Weaver/Firebrand ones), but I took out Richter again for Scourge and I’m actually really happy to play him again.  It’s been so long ;-;

My brother told me, “do yourself a favor and put down a sand shade near some enemies, then press F4.”  I tried it.  I laughed pretty hard.

Weaver is so much button-pressing but it’s really fun?  I’m still getting the hang of it but I do like it a lot.  At least it’s more challenging than condi tempest. *grumbles eternally*

Soulbeast looks promising, although I hope it doesn’t lead to another “let’s use condi ranger/thief on absolutely everything” situation again.  The new pets are also...interesting.  

Although when it comes to ranger I’m a druid at heart, so we’ll see.  Not that I’m usually conscripted for DPS roles anyway

Firebrand looks silly.  And broken.  I’m all for alternative sources of quickness (and alacrity in the case of other specs), but I don’t really want to see raid meta go to 2x PS 2x druid 2x chrono 2x firebrand (or something like that) with only 2 flex spots.  That doesn’t sound fun at all.

Also I’m guessing Firebrand will be the first to get the nerfbat.  The damage numbers people are getting are bonkers.

And hey look, they got the nerfbat.  Down to 33-35k.  At least that’s better than 50k? Ugh.

Renegade feels pretty decent.  Revenant has always been in a weird “built around elite specs” class, and that hasn’t changed.  I’m not sure how I feel about condi rev being more of a thing and less of a meme, but ayyy

Holosmith seems like it would be a lot more relevant if the transform wasn’t currently borked.  Scaling damage to a level 76 fine weapon is...sad.  If it’s fixed power Holosmith could be something legit?  Maybe?  Overall though I like the theme and look of it.  Also lol lightsaber.

Spellbreaker I...idk.  Thematically I like it a lot; I was a big fan of mesmer and shut down mechanics in GW1 and I like the idea of Spellbreaker, but from a mostly PvE perspective, it’s just kind of...eh? WvW and PvP I see it being incredibly useful but with limited boons to nom in PvE it doesn’t really look particularly great (especially with condi berserker getting tuned through the roof).

On mounts

I keep dyeing them funny colors.  Yes Quill’s are all some shade of yellow.

I honestly think they were well done.  I was never a supporter of adding them to the game (not against, but not for them either), but now that they’re here, I’m pretty okay with them.  

I like that each mount is useful in some specific capacity - raptor for flat open stretches, springer for verticality, skimmer for no touchy floor, jackal for portals and evasion through high mob density areas, and griffon for the absolute lulz of flying.  

I keep getting the “mount doesn’t render so your character model is riding away sunk in the ground while your camera remains in place” bug (I think it’s attached to trying to mount up before things are completely loaded), and while it’s funny, it’s kind of frustrating.

Mount swapping is a bit awkward, although binding each mount to its own key helps a lot.

I appreciate that the starting mount (the raptor) is still relevant even when you pick up the other three (four), as it’s definitely the fastest mount on flat ground and it’s improved leap is hilariously long.

Also it’s a giant scaly puppy so I have no problems with this.

The springer is hilarious.  And super terrain-breaking.  High cliff?  No problem, bunny hop.  Core and HoT map comp probably just got much, much simpler.  Also JPs that don’t have mount restrictions.

The skimmer is adorable, and riding it around is strangely...calming?  idk.  Also as one of my guildies put it: “maybe this is Anet’s answer to underwater combat: glide right over it.”  rip.

Of the four core mounts I think the jackal (blink doge) is my favorite.  It has a gorgeous design and the blink/portals are super cool.  Although the blink can get a bit titchy if you’re trigger happy with the jump button.

Of course I have the griffon.

IT’S SO FLUFFY.

I think it handles a little strangely (esp when you can’t dismount quickly, although you can divebomb), but it’s pretty solid.  And adorable.

250g was entirely worth it.

Also that Tahlkora cameo hit me right in the feels.

On the story

I’d get here eventually!  Eventually...;-;

All salad-shaped biases aside, the male sylvari VO is still my favorite and no one can convince me otherwise.  There was a good amount of sass, seriousness, and everything inbetween.  Ive is one to take everything with a “hahahaha you’re kidding what am I doing here help,” so overall the voice acting and dialogue fit him fairly well.

I’m a little disappointed by the lack of race-specific dialogue.  Humans don’t seem to have any special dialogue with or concerning Balthazar, and everyone else doesn’t really have a chance to comment as an outsider.  I know it’s more work and I still enjoyed the story as is, but it would have been a nice touch.

Like Ive would literally not give a shit about half of the things brought up.  Not because he doesn’t care about others, but because he has no clue what anyone is talking about.

This was particularly funny with Joko in the Domain of the Lost, because his whole tirade about the PC not knowing who he is could quickly be shut down with “I’m a salad, I have no idea who the fuck you are.”

The “decisions” were interesting, although unsurprisingly they had very little impact on the game as a whole (maybe in the future?  Doubt it).  I did appreciate that depending on the order the “decide on Amnoon’s independence” steps are done in, the dialogue changes.

I admit that I’ve gotten a little less partial to Taimi as she’s edged closer to Deus Ex Machina territory, but her dialogue and conversations (both with the PC and with others like Phlunt later on) are quite funny.

I wish there were more Vlast/Gleam before he died.  It’s sad that he showed up and just...died, but I can understand why they chose that path as well.  

Although some of that was my own fault; the chapter with the Exalted and Vlast’s upbringing I got supremely distracted by the jumping puzzle and spinning around on my new skimmer.

Still.  More Vlast!

RYTLOCK.  RYTLOCK WHY.  Nice job breaking it hero.  Surely you would know better than to accept help in the Mists from a random shackled man who CONVENIENTLY knows how to relight your magic sword.  Sigh.

I thought a lot about the Herald of Balthazar after finding the notes in Night of Fires.  I went back to it after talking to my brother and came to a very similar conclusion as a theorizer on the GW2 subreddit.  If that theory is true, that makes me very sad.

Pls say it’s true I like gut-punch feels.

Speaking of gut-punch feels, The Departing was amazing.  It was super disorienting not having access to the inventory or the minimap, but it was a very well-done instance and I enjoyed it immensely.  I appreciated that they stuck to the “you lost your name and purpose” thing to the point of replacing your character name (including in the hero panel) with Lost Spirit.

Balthazar murdering the PC was pretty neat. 

Also Aurene showing up exactly on time was both cliche and NO BALTHAZAR BAD STAY AWAY FROM BABY DRAGON. 

This, like a few other story missions later on, is super awkward to do as a group.  It’s supposed to be rather personal, and so the not-instance owners are reduced to buffing wisps (like later on in the thrall party instance, not-instance owners are just awakened thralls), and idk I was lucky I was instance owner but that seems rather :|

Ive had a lot of feels hearing everyone’s voices again.  Also the feels of him not exactly remembering everything and having to follow his purpose through his own memories and not quite remembering everything.  Including Trahearne.  

Also tfw the story mission is essentially Full Circle (as a sub-section of Closure) with a bit of bonus Balthazar.

Joko is being very obviously set up as a “you left me in a cage I swear vengeance rahhhhhh” villain.  Or Anet is going to pull a fast one and he will never show up again, which would be hilarious.

Bonus feels for everyone else surviving and Ive being the only one dead (think Eet).

Backtracking slightly, I’ve never liked Kormir.  I still don’t like Kormir.  And the human gods are miserably terrible people.  At this point there’s not much questioning as to whether or not they exist, but with the extent of their influence, their decision to just kind of peace is...rather appropriately god-like, for better or for worse.

Seriously though, gods pls.  I can see some of the logic of “world will be destroyed anyway if god attempts to fight god,” but surely there are other things that need be maintained.  

Also I like how Kormir notes that Balthazar had been stripped of his powers, and yet he still curbstomps the PC (unless it was entirely the imprisonment in the Mists that just locked his powers away, but Kormir’s dialogue suggests otherwise).

I would kill for a library like that.  Seriously.  So jelly.

The “let’s disguise ourselves as the Archon and go and convince Palawa Joko’s army to fight for us” part was so incredibly stupid that of course it worked.  We spent the entire time laughing at how incredulous it was.

The battle at Kodash Bazaar was actually kind of awesome?  There was stuff everywhere and my only inclination for the first part of the instance was “go hit things.”  

It was incredibly weird to just have Sohothin for the entire instance.  Yes I’m aware I could have dropped it.  But it was hilarious in a Caladbolg sort of way.  With less idiotic knockback, and more 300s cooldown skills.  

AURENE.  Balthazar stop hurting my dragon >:(

Also because he just yolo killed her other brother before she had a chance to meet him in person?  rip.

Although now that I think about it, how would that meeting even go?  Talking to the Exalted indicates that Vlast was isolated and not well-acclimated to the world around him, so by the time they realized he should be interacting with other races it was too late for him to form any empathy for anyone.  His dialogue seems to imply that his motivation was simply the fulfillment of a goal; he seemed far more interested in fulfilling his legacy as Glint’s son than the reason why she needed him and Aurene to do anything in particular.  He doesn’t really have a reason for what he’s doing, he just does.

Aurene is implied to have an empathic link with Vlast similar to her connection to the PC, but idk, it just seems like any actual meeting between the two of them would just be incredibly awkward.

I very much enjoyed both the penultimate and ultimate fight against Balthazar.  Also because if you turned around, you could see Kralkatorrik’s massive face just chilling in the sky because oh shit angry elder dragon.  It was...quite something.

I understand the PC’s current caution about killing elder dragons because of magic imbalance, and I also understand the need to stop Balthazar from being a total moron.  I also understand that there’s not much you can do to stop a mad god besides killing him (since those with the means to imprison him decided to float on).  But uh.  I’m not sure what anyone expected would happen if you kill the god who absorbed two dragons’ worth of magic with another dragon just chilling nearby.  Surely Kralkatorrik absorbing everything and flying off into the sunset while extending the Brand wasn’t a surprise.  

Seriously though what did you think was going to happen.

Baby dragon absorb magik and is not quite so baby anymore.  Aurene come back I miss you already ;-;

I commend you if you actually read all of that.  xD

Overall, a solid expansion with quite a bit of content.  We’ll see how replayable it ends up being as time goes on, but I am still quite amused by it and have plenty to do as it stands.  The story was fairly solid (although sometimes strange with questionable logic, as always), and I’m looking forward to where they take it with LWS4.  

#guild wars 2 #path of fire #path of fire spoilers #seriously all the spoilers #the artist rambles #a lot #that was really long #and still not all of it but ayyy #bullet points

[rofics]

My Little Prey

Fandom: BTS Pairing:  Namjoon x Jimin Genre: Smut Au: College hybrid au Request: The request was for some Bottom!Namjoon x Top!Jimin... Which we know I am always happy to provide! Summary: Jimin is a prey hybrid that is more or less tired of predators thinking he is just some cute little thing they can play with, he meets predator Namjoon who really is just a huge dork that looks way to adorable in his sweaterpaw's. Ussuri dhole Namjoon and Chipmunk Jimin!

Chipmunks… Fuck chipmunks. That was Jimin’s main thought as he washed dried sweat off his body after his last dancing class of the day. He loved dancing, and he loved the classes, he just fucking hated everybody in it.

They had a few new students joining them today, and it had only been a little while before one of the girls, a female student raccoon dog hybrid had poked his cheek and cooed over how cute he was. Had he maybe bit her finger yes… Maybe… It wasn’t his fault! He was so tired of people, no that was wrong that predatory animals thought that he was such a cute little thing just because he was a prey animal!

Okay he had chubby cheeks and was short, but that was it! He had trained his body to have muscles all over, he wasn’t just some cute little thing! So yeah, Jimin hated being a chipmunk hybrid, the worst part was that every person he seemed to be attracted to was a stupid ass predator, and he tried to date them he really did!

He tried not to judge people based on their hybrid status, but nobody seemed to give it back to him. It wasn’t like people were yelling at him or shit like that, it was small things like patting him on the head, touching his ears, poking his cheeks. Oh god, could people just stop poking his cheeks?!

While he was swearing away society in his head he failed to notice a certain vampire deer behind him until arms were closed behind his middle and slightly slurred words were heard in his ear. “Jiminie! I need a favour!”

He didn’t need to turn around to know that it was Taehyung, even if it wasn’t because of deeper than average voice, the slurring based on his long fangs always gave him away. “I am not helping you check if Yoongi-hyung can breath underwater, that is called assisted murder, and let’s be honest… Yoongi-hyung won’t stay dead, he will be back to haunt us.”

Taehyung’s voice was pouty “You are so boring, but that’s not the point right now! You know that coffee place you refuse to go with me to?”

“The weird hipster one where all the art students hang their art trying to sell it?” He questioned and pulled his shirt on as Taehyung finally let him go.

“Yeah that one, I need your help! There is this cute bunny, and I need to find out if he likes guys.”

“And your answer to that… Is stalking?” Jimin really shouldn’t be surprised Taehyung had always been extra as fuck.

He wanted to say no, the place was simply just weird to him and all the art was even more weird. “It’s not stalking! I’m just making sure!”

“He works at a hipster coffee-shop, they don’t come more gay than that.” Jimin didn’t want to go there, but he also wanted to be a good friend, since Taehyung did put up with him complaining about stupid as predators.

He sighed. “He better be worth it… and he better be really really cute.”

Which he shouldn’t have said, that was what launched Taehyung into a long rant about just how cute the bunny was, not that Jimin really cared. But he was a good friend so he listened and that was how he ended up in the most hipster coffee shop that he had ever seen.

It was easy for him to determine who Taehyung’s crush was, tall dark haired with a good muscle mass but still a cute face. Yes Taehyung had a type that was for sure, if it wasn’t because the deer hybrid only dated people taller than him, Jimin was sure that he would have hit on him. So just to be sure he dyed his hair orange, no shade to Taehyung… But… He wasn’t really Jimin’s type.

That was when he noticed something that very much was his type, the guy was sitting in a corner in a oversized chair, with his stupidly long legs curled up under him, holding a book close while an oversized pair of glasses was resting on his nose. A pair of wolf ears had been bleached to match the color of his hair, but the dark roots were showing his real hair color.

The guy was… adorable, a kind of adorable that overshadowed the fact that his small but still showing canines and wolf ears clearly marked him as predator, and Jimin had sworn off ever dating predators again.

“Jimin!? Are you even listening?” Oh apparently Taehyung had been speaking while he had been staring at the wolf.

He pointed towards the blond wolf. “Do you know that guy?”

“Namjoon-hyung? Yeah he is always here, he is in Yoongi-hyung music production class. I talked with him a few times. He's a nice person.” Jimin hadn’t taken his eyes of Namjoon in all the time Taehyung had spoken, how had he never seen this guy before?

“You go and stalk your bunny then. I… have other stuff to do.” And with that he left Taehyung who was complaining in loud whispers about him being a traitor and he couldn’t just do stuff like that!

First when he had taken the spot across from Namjoon did he realize that this might have been a bad idea. It took almost 5 minutes before Namjoon looked up from his book seeming surprised to see Jimin there. “Hello?”

Jimin just kinda blanked at that point, he hadn’t planned what to say after he made contact. He felt that maybe just spurting out. “You are really pretty! Please go on a date with me!” Might not be the best idea.

“Shouldn’t I be the one asking you out?” Namjoon asked covering his laugh up with his hand, omg he had cute sweater sleeves. Shit! He had said that outloud hadn’t he.

The blush that took over Namjoon’s cheeks clearly showed, that yes he had said that out loud, over all… Jimin was really smooth… or not. “That came out wrong… I would… I would really like to take you out, if you aren’t too busy.”

Namjoon played with lower lip with his pinky in a clearly thinking movement. Jimin was worried for a second that he had blown his chance. “There is a movie going currently that I have wanted to see for a while, we can go together?”

Jimin hurriedly nodded, didn’t even ask what movie it was, how bad could it be? When he turned up at the movie theater dressed in what he hoped showed off his best features. Tanktop and skinny jeans, he had expected to see one of block busters currently showing. At first he was overjoyed, Namjoon had showed up in a sweater matching the one from the day before, long sleeves covering his hands and tight jeans hugging his thighs close showing off. Then when he saw what they were watching he wanted to cry, some stupid pretentious french art movie, he should have expected this shouldn’t he?

Namjoon seemed to actually look forward to it, he spoke animated about it, with big hand movements and a soft smile on his lips. His wolf tail seemed to be equally excited as it was happily swaying from side to side. The top half seemed to have been dyed to match his hair and then the rest slowly running down into black, he was bloody gorgeous and he liked standing behind Namjoon as the tail wrapped itself around Namjoon thick thigh, to make sure that nobody stepped on it.

He hadn’t spent much time with Namjoon, this was their first date after all, but he liked how he never treated Jimin like other predators did. He never pushed Jimin or made the first move. If anything it was always Jimin who had to make the first move. The movie was boring, no that would be putting it too nicely, it was mind numbingly boring, but he got to hold Namjoon’s hand. He had intended to try for a kiss, but the wolf was way too into the movie, so he ended up just being happy holding the blond’s hand, as his gaze moved from the boring movie back to their hands he remembered another reason he hated being a prey animal. Namjoon’s hand was so much bigger than his, it looked like Namjoon’s hand completely swallowed up his.

When they left the movie theater either person had yet to let go of the other's hand. “You didn’t watch the movie at all, did you?”

Jimin awkwardly ran a hand through his orange hair. “No, I’m sorry it wasn’t my kind of thing.”

Then it was Namjoon’s turn to awkwardly giggle. “It’s my fault, Yoongi-hyung always says that my tastes are boring.”

“No!” Namjoon raised an eyebrow “Okay it might not be my taste, but I really enjoyed spending time with you!”

God he was adorable as he giggled into his hand again, pushing his glasses up. “Enough to give me another chance to take you out? And hopefully not bore you?”

Okay, it was time to test if the predator was ready to let him, a prey, take charge. “What if I plan our next date?”

A light blush made itself known over Namjoon’s cheekbones. “I would like that.”

That conversation lead to another date, a more chill date planned by Jimin who took them out to a hole in the wall italian place. It was a good date if you asked Jimin. It was the first time he got to see Namjoon in something that wasn’t an oversized sweater. Instead the man was wearing a tight fitted white button up complimenting his tanned skin.

Jimin enjoyed their evening. He was worried at first that he would have nothing to talk with Namjoon about, but conversation flowed between them without any problem. It turned out that really the blond was just a big dork, a big dork with a love for music that Jimin could relate to.

Namjoon’s food had almost gotten cold as the older was telling a story of how he one time fell of the stage while he was rapping. “I would probably have been hurt much more if my girlfriend at the time hadn’t caught me, luckily she was a polar bear so I didn’t crush her, but still everybody laughed… And that was the last time anybody took me serious at that venue.” Namjoon laughed while running a hand through his hair, he had replaced his glasses with contacts for tonight, but it left Jimin to realize that he did prefer Namjoon with glasses on. He was so cute with them.

“Wait you dated another predator?” Most people usually avoided that.

Namjoon just looked confused. “Yeah? Oh no please don’t tell me you are one of those who is against dating between prey and prey, and Predators and predator? Of course! You are super awesome and hot, but there is always a hamartia isn’t there!?” And then he was on his feet fishing for his wallet, because he might want to storm out but his mother had raised him right!

“Did you just quote ‘Fault in Our Stars’?”

“Yes,” now he just looked shy and awkward, “my point still stands!” He was about to throw money on the table and leave when Jimin grabbed his wrist to stop him.

“I didn’t mean it like that,” he excused, “it’s just that it is uncommon! You know since predators are known to fight each other a lot.”

“Oh so we are just mindless brutes now?” His ears were twitching and tail standing up, but there didn’t seem to be much aggression in his stance. More that he seemed to be disappointed in Jimin, which yes probably was more painful than if he had just made the man angry instead of letting him down.

“No! Stop taking the words from my mouth! I was just surprised, please don’t leave. I really like you.” The chipmunk pleaded.

Namjoon blushed looking down at where Jimin had grabbed his wrist. “I’m sorry,” he hung his head in a sad movement, “I’m so used to people making fun of me just for being me and I shouldn’t have made such a big deal about it.” His wolf ears were hanging in a sad movement, making him look more like a puppy who had gotten slapped on the nose more than a wolf who should be able to rip out people's throat. Why was Namjoon so adorable?

“Let’s do this over?” Jimin asked hesitantly.

The wolf nodded. “I’m Kim Namjoon, I’m a huge nerd and sometimes I get a little defensive because people aren’t really nice, and they don’t understand that my attraction to people can’t be forced on just one subset of people. I just like people and that doesn’t make me weak.” He was wringing his hands not meeting Jimin’s gaze.

“I’m Park Jimin, I’m a dancer and I don’t like when people think that I’m some weak willed person who just does what other people says just because I’m prey. I can be dominant and a prey.” That made both of them smile at each other. This could work out.

It did end up working out, it ended up working out very well. They did have their struggles of course. Namjoon was prone to trying to be what society wanted from him. He had moments when they were out in public where he would try and act like the big manly predator, but Jimin had quickly learned that all he needed was a light scratch behind the ear to go back to being a sweet little puppy.

He had also learned that Namjoon wasn’t actually a wolf, but a ussuri dhole. Also known as an Indian wild dog. Namjoon had seemed almost offended that Jimin thought he was a wolf. “Since when are wolves native to South Korea?”

The chipmunk hybrid had just laughed and kissed him on the cheek. “I’m not even sure what a Ussuri is, so I will just take your word for it.”

He enjoyed spending time with Namjoon, both in public and by themselves, the older male was fascinating to watch. The first time Jimin had seen him rapping he almost couldn’t believe that it was actually Namjoon. First when he got off stage covered in sweat from performing eagerly asking Jimin what he thought like an overly eager puppy.

So yeah, he was happy with Namjoon, and somehow the older hybrid agreed to date him. They took it slow, that one was on Namjoon’s request, apparently he had gotten burned before and he didn’t want it to happen again with Jimin. Which was fine with him! It really was, if Namjoon could stop wearing tight jeans and being so fucking adorable.

It hadn’t been planned at all the day they ended up actually going all the way. It had been just a makeup session like so many times before, it had been on the couch of Jimin’s shared apartment with Taehyung. Whatever movie Namjoon had put on the hopefully better, Jimin’s sense of cinematography had long been forgotten as Jimin was pushing Namjoon to the couch. Strong thighs caging his hips as their tongues were dancing to a beat only they could hear. It hadn’t been on purpose, he just wanted to move Namjoon’s tail so he didn’t crush it, but in his eager hand movement he accidentally grabbed the tail a little harshly. Jimin broke to kiss to apologise, he knew that he hated when people pulled his tail since it was very sensitive, instead Namjoon released a breathy whiny moan.

To say Jimin hadn’t been expecting that was to put it mildly, but that didn’t stop him from exploring this newly found pleasure point, he gave the tail another weak tug as he bit down on his neck. The reaction was instant, as Namjoon seem to completely fall lax under his treatment, his entire body just kinda relaxed, letting Jimin do whatever it wanted as he once again moaned out, this time a breathy version of Jimin’s name.

“Aw you like that baby? You like when you are getting your pretty little tail pulled? Or do you just like when you people treat you are little rough?” He cooed into Namjoon’s ear before lightly nipping at it.

Namjoon couldn’t keep back a whine as he clawed at Jimin’s back. “Yes please!”

So yeah, Namjoon begging was definitely a kink that he hadn’t expected to have, but he did indeed very much have it, he gave Namjoon’s tail another tug, sneaking the other hand beneath the man’s oversized sweater to thumb at his nipple. “This okay baby?” While he wanted to keep going, consent was important especially in moments like this.

The blond bit his lip, and for a second Jimin thought he was going to say no, instead he just asked. “Can we go to the bedroom instead? You said Taehyung would be home soon and I don’t really want him to find us like this.” A light blush was spreading over his cheeks, but it was also clear that he was very much still turned on.

Jimin had to agree with him on that one, he didn’t really want to get found out by Taehyung either, he placed a quick kiss on his lips before getting off of him, grabbing his hand to half pull the taller towards his bedroom.

He pulled Namjoon in with him locking the door, and then pushing the ussuri up against the it. He took his mouth in another heated kiss, until Jimin decided that he didn’t enjoy the height difference between them. “Get on the bed baby?”

Namjoon just nodded as he went to pull off the oversized sweater, but Jimin was quick to stop him. “Keep that on, everything else off.” So yeah he had a kink, whatever sue him.

Again Namjoon hesitated, but then he started pulling off his tight jeans showing those beautiful tanned thighs. Jimin started removing his own clothes, undressing down to his tight boxers. Namjoon looked kinda awkward wirh his oversized sweater covering his nether region. “Get on the bed baby, you decided how you want to be.”

Namjoon’s dyed tailed was clearly overeager as it moved from side to side, then he did as Jimin asked him to choosing to get on his hands and knees on the bed. He leaned forward resting on his elbows, presenting his rearside to Jimin.

While Jimin had been with predators who let him top before, no one  had ever been this willing, god he loved this man. It was like they were meant to be. “So pretty baby.”

He couldn’t stop himself from caressing the man’s inner thigh. “Jimin please hurry up!” Even a little touch like that seemed to turn Namjoon on as he lifted his tail up clearly showing where he wanted Jimin to touch.

“If you say so.” He knew what Namjoon really wanted, he was still hard from their makeout sessions in the living room and with weeks of teasing leading up to this moment, Jimin knew what the wolf wanted, but he wasn’t about to give it to him. Instead he leaned forward, spread Namjoon’s cheeks gently before licking a stripe over his rim.

The reaction was instant as he felt the wolf's tail lightly falling on the top of his head. “Don’t tease, please don’t tease!”

Jimin didn’t answer he just kept licking around the rim, seeing how the it was eagerly opening under the touch of his tongue made Jimin think that Namjoon might like to play with himself in a whole other way. The thought of Namjoon, his cute predator on his back stuffing those long fingers inside his hole while moaning Jimin’s name was definitely a thought Jimin could get behind as he lightly pushed the tip of tongue inside Namjoon.

He really shouldn’t tease the older, if anything he himself was eager to finally get inside the male, but his reaction to the teasing was so beautiful. Jimin snuck a finger in with his tongue and started opening him up for real and preparing him.

“Jimiiiiin!” Namjoon whined into a pillow beautifully, trying to push his ass closer to Jimin to really get what he wanted. Jimin gave in and pushed another finger in slowly scissoring him open while he fucked him for real with his tongue.

All the sounds Namjoon released were just amazing, and it fueled Jimin to aim for that one special spot inside him. It took a few tries but when he finally got it, it was worth it. All with how Namjoon somehow managing to be even louder. God he hoped Taehyung wasn’t home, because he planned on forcing every sound he could out of Namjoon.     

Namjoon was reduced to a begging mess when Jimin finally decided that he was done preparing the older. “Can you give me the lube baby, the bedside table right next to you.”

He whined as he reached out for the lube throwing it back to Jimin who had decided that placing hickies on Namjoon’s inner thigh and marking him up was a good idea. “Jimin please just hurry up! It’s not fun anymore!”

“I’m having fun.” He pulled down his pants and let out a low moan as he spread lube over his erection, he hadn’t had any stimulation at all.

Namjoon mumbled something Jimin couldn’t hear but he was sure it wasn’t a compliment at all. “So you wanna complain that means you don’t really want it at all?” He teased as he pressed himself up against the blonde’s back, and lightly sliding his erection between his cheeks.

The older didn’t say anything he just whined high in his throat, clearly not at all appreciating Jimin being a big fucking tease. “You have to use your words Joonie, I don’t know what you want if you don’t say anything.”

“You know very well what I want! Just give it to me!” The ussuri’s voice was clearly meant to be strong, a show some kind of strength, but instead it was light and breathy.

“No, tell me what you want.”

“Just fuck me already! I want you fucking cock inside me, JIMIN PLEASE!”

“Good boy.” Jimin complemented, lightly nipping at the dyed wolf ear on top of his head guiding himself inside Namjoon in a very slow movement. As much as he wanted to fuck the man silly, he also didn’t want to hurt him.

Namjoon didn’t seem to agree with Jimin’s slow tempo as he moved his hips backwards forcing  Jimin all the way inside him and forcing a strangled moan out of both of them.

Jimin had to rest his head between Namjoon’s shoulder blades to calm down for a second, he really wanted to just fuck the older, but he also knew that he needed to keep it chill.

“You can move please.” Namjoon mumbled into the pillow, trying to keep the noises in.

“Don’t hide those moans from me, you try and hide them and I stop, got it?” He pulled Namjoon up by his hair, forcing another moan from the man this time not hid and muffled by the pillow.

Jimin started his thrusts slowly, going deep but slowly, not wanting to overwhelm Namjoon to early. He should have known that Namjoon at this point didn’t appreciate getting treated like he was fragile as he started moving his hips against Jimin’s thrust forcing the younger to speed up. Okay if Namjoon wanted it like that, he would get it like that!

Their fucking become much more desperate with Jimin gripping Namjoon’s hips hard with one hand, the other still holding his head up by his hair. The sound coming out of Namjoon’s mouth went from whiny dirty to ‘Omg that is not appropriate for any venue!’ As both neared the edge Jimin let go of Namjoon’s hip to wrap it around his erection but he felt his wrist getting caught by a fluffy tail. “No don’t! I… It’s fine please just! Just!”

The words made no sense but Jimin he was sure he knew what Namjoon actually meant, so increased the speed of his hips, and at this point he was positive that he was actually leaving bruises on the wolf’s hips. But Namjoon seemed to enjoy it. For a second Jimin was worried that he wouldn’t be able to last long enough, but with one pull on Namjoon’s bleached tail and a high throat whine Namjoon tightened around him as he came.

Jimin couldn’t hold back anymore as he emptied himself inside Namjoon, his strength more or less failing him as he fell on top of Namjoon’s back who had also given up on holding himself up. Both males just laid there trying to catch their breath for a while, until they heard a loud bang on the door. “So are you two finally done fucking? You scared my bunbun! Jungkook won’t come out of the bathroom because of you guys!”  

Authors note:

For people who care:

Namjoon: Ussuri dhole Jimin: Siberian Chipmunk Jungkook: Korean hare Taehyung: Siberian musk deer Yoongi: Pygmy killer whale Hoseok: Golden Crown Crane Seokjin: Asian Black Bear

HOPE YOU ENJOYED!

- Prussia / Bottom Namjoon Queen

#minjoon #Namjoon #Rap Monster #Jimin #smut #Hybrid au #bts #kpop #bts fanfic #bts smut #Namjoon x Jimin #Bottom Namjoon #Top Jimin

[thewalkingsnapplecap]

Have an idea for a future edition of TIFO? Hit reply and tell me.

View this email in your browser

Like this newsletter? You'll also likely enjoy our book: The Wise Book of Whys

(Print/Kindle | Nook | Audiobook) and our podcast: The BrainFood Show (iTunes | Google Play | Stitcher | RSS/XML )

Our latest episode of the podcast is up for your listening pleasure: The Woman Who was the Most Powerful Pirate of All Time

That Time a Guy Tried to Build a Utopia for Mice and It All Went to Hell

In 1968, an expert on animal behaviour and population control called John B. Calhoun built what was essentially a utopia for mice that was purpose built to satisfy their every need. Despite going out of his way to ensure the inhabitants of his perfect mouse society never wanted for anything, within 2 years virtually the entire population was dead. So what happened?

Dubbed “Universe 25”, Calhoun’s mouse utopia was built with the needs of its mouse inhabitants firmly in mind and was designed specifically to cater to their every whim. Containing plentiful food, water, bedding and, at least initially, space, the enclosure was described as follows:

"A tank, 101 inches square, enclosed by walls 54 inches high. The first 37 inches of wall was structured so the mice could climb up, but they were prevented from escaping by 17 inches of bare wall above. Each wall had sixteen vertical mesh tunnels—call them stairwells—soldered to it. Four horizontal corridors opened off each stairwell, each leading to four nesting boxes. That means 256 boxes in total, each capable of housing fifteen mice."

Well versed in rodent populations from dozens of previous experiments (something that’s kind of apparent when you realise the enclosure was called Universe 25) Calhoun anticipated that his mouse paradise could reliably and more importantly, comfortably house 3840 mice. Before that though, he needed to pick the proverbial Adam and Eve of his mouse Garden of Eden. Calhoun eventually settled on four breeding pairs of mice specially bred for the experiment and hand-picked from the most healthy specimens from the National Institute of Health’s own breeding colony.

Before discussing what happened next we should give some background information about how this experiment came to be and what it was hoping to accomplish. Prior to creating Universe 25, Calhoun had performed a number of similar experiments with rodents starting way back in the 1940’s, all of which ended in failure when the population either stalled or turned on itself.

For example, in one experiment Calhoun created an enclosure that could have easily housed 5000 rats but the eventual population never rose above 200 despite unlimited food, water and a complete absence of predators or threats. Furthermore Calhoun noticed that, again despite ample space his rodents would often crowd together, which resulted in a breakdown of social structure amongst the population. This unusual phenomenon led Calhoun to coin the phrase “Behavioural Sink” to describe what he felt was the inevitable collapse of any overpopulated society.

Calhoun’s experiments eventually caught the eye of the National Institute of Mental Health or NIMH who were intrigued about the observed effects of overpopulation in rodents, specifically if any of the observed phenomenon could be applied to humans. To this end, NIMH gave Calhoun access to a small piece of land they owned in Maryland and the funding needed to construct Universe 25. The stated goal of the experiment was simply to see whether a “perfect” society would flourish.

Initially the experiment proved successful and the mice lived in relative harmony and within a year, the population of eight super-healthy mice swelled to a respectable 620 members.

Great care was taken to ensure the mice were taken care of, food and water was unlimited allowing mice to eat or drink whenever they pleased and there was always space and clean bedding available so females could rear young in peace and safety.

Despite this, Calhoun noticed that after day 315 of the experiment, things started to go wrong. First of all there was a noticeable drop in population growth. While initially the population of mouse heaven had doubled every 55 days, after day 315 it doubled, according to Calhoun’s notes, approximately every 145 days. This made little sense as there was still at this time ample space to house an additional 3000 mice.

In addition to a drop in population growth, Calhoun also noticed an abrupt change in behaviour in both males and females. Social bonds effectively broke down and male mice, without a reason to defend their territory or food source (since both were plentiful) became dejected, forming cliques that randomly attacked one another for seemingly no reason. Females similarly began abandoning young or even attacking them and slowly but surely, both males and females simply stopped breeding.

In the lead up to this, certain of the male mice began continually mating with whatever mouse happened to be around, be it male or female. Many of the mice also began to simply kill and eat one another, despite the abundance of other food sources; mothers abandoned babies, mice would crowd together in groups of 50 or more in pens designed to hold 15 individuals, while pens with plentiful bedding sat empty inches away.

Most intriguing of all were a small group of males and females who withdrew themselves from mouse society altogether to live in the upper levels of the enclosure that Calhoun dubbed, “The Beautiful Ones”.

These mice did nothing but sleep, eat and groom themselves (this gave them noticeably smoother looking coats which, along with their isolation meaning no scars from attacks, led to their nickname). They seemingly lost interest in all meaningful social bonds, refusing to interact or mate.

The last birth in Universe 25 took place on day 600 and from this moment, the population slowly dwindled. Even when the population receded to levels where the mice had previously flourished, they refused to breed or go back to their old way of interacting.

A few months later, all of the mice were dead. Calhoun noted that although the population had survived for many months afterwards, it had effectively died on the 315th day- the day social bonds broke down, stating: “Their spirit has died ('the first death'). They are no longer capable of executing the more complex behaviours compatible with species survival. The species in such settings die.”

Calhoun saw his experiments as a warning bell for humanity, with his belief being that overpopulation would inevitably lead to social collapse and thus, the extinction of the human race. Others have taken less nihilistic views of his work and believe that his results aren't comparable to what would happen in human society as, after all, we're slightly more complex and self aware creatures than mice.

That said, what's often lost in Calhoun's work is what came after, in which he continued to research and tweak environmental variables to try to find ways to keep the mice from going down the extinction path even as the population density grew. And, in fact, he had some success at this, for instance in one case via simply encouraging creativity in certain mice by various means. Giving them a sort of purpose here actually worked, with the "creative" mice continuing to thrive well beyond what would have otherwise been expected from the previous experiments.

In the end, whatever one's opinion of whether Calhoun's work is actually relevant to humans, it’s still kind of fascinating that a near rodent utopia resulted in the mouse equivalent of the purge.

If you liked this article, you might also enjoy:

Who Invented the Computer Mouse?

Terrifying Fluffy Bunnies and The Little Albert Experiment

That Time Someone Gave a Homeless Person $100,000 Just to See What Would Happen

Two-Headed Dogs and Human Head Transplants

Share

Tweet

Forward

If you'd like to help keep this newsletter ad-free or just otherwise support it, please consider buying a copy of our book for yourself or someone you know. Thanks!!! The Wise Book of Whys

Print/Kindle | Nook | Audiobook

You might also enjoy our YouTube channel: Check It Out Here

Author: Karl Smallwood

You might have missed:

That Time the U.S. Dumped Millions of Dollars Worth of Helicopters Into the Ocean to Save One Family

Can You Legally Land a Helicopter in a Fast Food Parking Lot?

Did the Ancient Tombs Really Have Booby Traps?

What Happens to Your Stuff When You Get Sent to Prison?

Why Do Racehorses Have Such Weird Names

Copyright © 2019 Vacca Foeda Media, All rights reserved.

You opted in at http://www.todayifoundout.com, or you wouldn't get this email.

Our mailing address is:

Vacca Foeda Media

P.O. Box 1011

Gold Bar, WA 98251

Add us to your address book

Want to change how you receive these emails?

You can update your subscription preferences (e.g. change your Daily or Weekly edition preferences, update your email, etc.) or unsubscribe from this list

[amtushinfosolutionspage]

DGB Grab Bag: Look Out, Mitch Marner, Easter Bunny Larocque, and Everyone Re-Lax

Three Stars of Comedy

The third star: Artemi Panarin. I don’t fully understand what’s going on here, but I’m pretty sure he’s making fun of the Edmonton Oilers so I’m in.

The second star: Brody Marleau. That would be Patrick Marleau’s nine-year-old son. He got to spend his birthday with the Maple Leafs, which was adorable. He’s also apparently working on stealing Mitch Marner’s girlfriend, which is somehow more adorable.

The first star: Guy Boucher’s face. Fun fact: He’s not even reacting to anything in particular here, he’s just been making this face constantly since mid-November.

Outrage of the Week

The issue: Washington’s Evgeny Kuznetsov tried to score with the behind-the-net lacrosse move this week.

A few nights later, Filip Forsberg tried it, too.

The outrage: That move is disrespectful and anyone who tries it should eat an elbow for their troubles.

Is it justified: OK, I’m overselling the outrage here a bit—it’s not like anybody went nuclear on Kuznetsov or Forsberg. But that’s mainly because their moves didn’t work. If either guy had scored, you can bet that plenty of old-school hockey types would have pulled out their soapboxes and pontificated about hot-shot glory boys disrespecting the game and showing up the other side.

And here’s the thing: It’s going to happen. It’s kind of amazing that it hasn’t happened already.

The move has been around for a while; most of us saw it for the first time when Mike Legg scored with it in college back in 1996. But as best we can remember, nobody’s ever scored with it in a meaningful NHL game. Kuznetsov may even have been the first player to try it all. That’s kind of weird, because it’s not like today’s players can’t do it. Many of them weren’t even born yet when Legg pulled it off, and they’ve grown up trying it; Sidney Crosby did it all the way back in junior. Every NHL team has a few guys who can pull the move off reasonably well in practice. Heck, your beer-league team probably has a few guys who claim they can.

But nobody ever does, at least not in the NHL, because it’s one of those things you’re just not supposed to do. When Crosby did it in 2003, he was ripped by Don Cherry and others for showboating, and he hasn’t broken it out since. Plenty of fans still feel like there’s something wrong with the move.

If you’re one of those fans, I’ve got bad news for you: We’re probably a few years away from players doing this all the time. It’s going to be like the between-the-legs shot that nobody ever tried until the 90s. At first, you couldn’t believe what you’d just seen. Within a few years, Marek Malik was doing it in the shootout, and now it’s just a standard play that everyone tries.

The same thing is going to happen with the lacrosse move. (My personal prediction: One of the many guys who can already do it is going to wait for playoff overtime to break it out for real.) When it does, the old school will complain the first few times, but then we’ll get used to it, and the next generation of fans will wonder why there was ever a time when players weren’t supposed to score with moves they knew would work.

If that bothers you, get your complaining in now. In five years, we’ll look back and wonder what the problem was.

Obscure Former Player of the Week

Happy Easter weekend. Today’s obscure player is Bunny Larocque.

Larocque, who’s given name was Michel, was a junior star with the Ottawa 67s in the late 60s and early 70s. He was drafted with the sixth overall pick by the Canadiens in 1972—yes, yet another case of the team using a high pick on a goalie they didn’t really need. Unlike poor Ray Martynuik, Larocque at least got to play in Montreal, where he served as Ken Dryden’s backup during the late-70s Habs dynasty and took over as the part-time starter after Dryden retired. He even won the Vezina four times. Granted, that was back when it was awarded automatically to the goalies on the team with the fewest goals against, like the Jennings is today, but saying “four-time Vezina winner” sounds impressive so we’ll go with that.

His run in Montreal came to an end in 1981, when he was traded to Toronto. The Leafs were terrible, but it gave Larocque a chance to finally be the full-time starter, playing a career-high 50 games in 1981-82. He was traded to the Flyers in 1983 and later had a short stint with the Blues. In all, his NHL career lasted 11 seasons and 312 starts. He began a front-office career in junior hockey, but died in 1992 at the age of 40 after a battle with brain cancer.

Although all those Stanley Cups and Vezinas in Montreal were nice, it goes without saying that his true career highlight came as a Maple Leaf. On January 16, 1982, he got to face down Wayne Gretzky on a penalty shot.

Larocque stood on his head that whole night, and the Leafs won 7-1. Meanwhile, the great 1976-79 Habs “dynasty” never beat the Oilers, not even once. You tell me which team was better.

Be It Resolved

Be it resolved that it’s OK to just say the Golden Knights are the best expansion team ever, in any sport.

Really. It’s fine. Honestly, it’s probably not even up for debate. It’s also a great story, one the NHL should be singing it from the rooftops.

And to their credit, the league is trying. But it has run into a problem: The whole concept of an “expansion” team turns out to be a lot murkier than you might think, and that makes comparing the Knights to what’s come before tricky. Sure, teams like the 1998-99 Predators and the 1974-75 Capitals were expansion teams. But what about the 1979 WHA merger? Or the new teams that showed up in the 1920s and 30s? Do the 1991 Sharks even count, since they got to start with half the North Stars roster?

And so the league has had to go through contortions in order to recognize the Golden Knights without leaving anybody out. For a while they kept using the phrase “inaugural season.” More recently, it’s just “first NHL season.”

That clears up the semantics, but it doesn’t really do the Knights justice. It also leads to weird stuff like that tweet having to include teams from the league’s very first season, which hardly makes sense.

And if you try to expand the argument to other pro sports, it goes even more off the rails:

You can see what they’re trying to do, but I’m pretty sure I wrote essays in college that were shorter than that tweet. And let’s be honest, the NBA can say whatever it wants, but the 2002-03 Hornets aren’t an expansion team. Nor are teams that join from other leagues, or that show up in 1923 because some railroad tycoon got together six friends and $100 in cash and was granted an NHL team to play out of his backyard.

The Golden Knights are an expansion team. And they’re the best one ever, in any major sport. It’s fine to just say that.

Classic YouTube Clip Breakdown

Sunday is April Fool’s day. The hockey world isn’t much for pranks these days, beyond the beaten-into-the-ground “make the rookie call-up skate a lap by himself” joke and the occasional trying-a-bit-too-hard social-media bit. There was a time when hockey folks were allowed to have a sense of humor, though. We saw it last year when we unearthed an old Buffalo Sabres clip. This year, let’s hear from Dave Taylor and the Los Angeles Kings.

We start off with MSG throwing it to a clip from LA. Our host is longtime Kings play-by-play man Nick Nickson, and he’s sitting with veteran winger Taylor. They’re reminiscing about the very first interview they ever did together, way back in 1977, and Nickson has the clip. This should be fun!

Hey, wait a minute…

Yes, our trip back to 1977 has been accomplished via some special effects, a terrible fake mustache, and a fantastic mullet wig. It’s actually a pretty decent setup, and I’d be willing to bet that at least a few viewers took a minute to catch on to what was happening.

In his first answer, Taylor suggests that the Kings should someday switch over the black-and-silver uniforms like the Raiders. Get it? He’s predicting what happens in the future. I hope you enjoyed that joke, because it’s basically the only one they have for the next four minutes.

They also trip over which city the Raiders are supposed to be playing in, but they just keep rolling. The bit is good, but not “worth trying more than one take” good.

Taylor’s next answer “predicts” that he should play on a line with Marcel Dionne and Charlie Simmer. That would of course be the Triple Crown Line, which turned out to be one of the best of the 1980s. It was also one of the last great lines to get a decent nickname, instead of today’s lazy treatment of taking the first letter of each guy’s name and being done with it. We’re lucky this line didn’t come along today—I’m not sure I could have handled cheering on the STD Line.

Taylor’s next prediction is that the Islanders will be good, at which point Nickson jumps in to wonder if they’ll make an important trade someday. That’s a reference to the infamous Butch Goring deadline deal with the Kings, but to Nickson and Taylor’s credit they don’t come right out and hit you over the head with the punchline. Mainly because they’re saving that for the next question.

Yes, we arrive at the inevitable Wayne Gretzky bit. You knew it was coming. Taylor manages to predict all of Gretzky’s scoring records, at which point Nickson wonders what would happen if Gretzky ever wound up in a big market like Los Angeles. Taylor responds, “We probably still wouldn’t win anything and then end up trading him for Roman Vopat,” but I think that part accidentally got cut.

We mercifully make it to the last question. Nickson wants to know what players do in their spare time. Taylor answers that he likes reading comic books, and as luck would have it happens to be holding one in his hand right then. It’s a Batman comic, and Taylor predicts that someday it could make for a good movie, which is funny because… You know what, I think you get the idea.

I think we can agree that this whole bit isn’t exactly the most subtle premise, but there is a neat moment at the very beginning that’s easy to miss. Go back to Taylor’s first answer at the one-minute mark, and note how he stutters through the first few words. As a real rookie back in 1977, Taylor had a speech impediment, and often avoided doing interviews. He worked on it over the years to the point where it was rarely noticeable, but he sure seems to slip in an intentional reference to it here. I thought that was cool.

We close with Nickson pointing out the few things “rookie” Taylor failed to predict, and Taylor responding that he wasn’t asked about those. They then pull off the “fake laugh and look at the camera” moment that ended each episode of every 1980s sitcom, and we’re done.

In case you’re wondering, this YouTube clip doesn’t mention the date that it originally aired, but I think we can piece it together. We know it was during Taylor’s career but after the Gretzky trade, that it was a game against the Rangers in New York, and that the two teams were tied 1-1 after one period. That leaves two possibilities, one from 1993 and the other from 1990. I think we can safely go with the latter, since the Batman movie came out in 1989. So that means this aired on March 12, 1990, which isn’t quite April Fools territory but is close enough. Don’t say you never get any investigative journalism out of this column.

By the way, Taylor ended up scoring a goal in a Kings’ win that night. Who could have predicted that?

Have a question, suggestion, old YouTube clip, or anything else you’d like to see included in this column? Email Sean at [email protected].

DGB Grab Bag: Look Out, Mitch Marner, Easter Bunny Larocque, and Everyone Re-Lax syndicated from https://australiahoverboards.wordpress.com