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A Nervous Old Man (right) and his Emotional Support Violence Machine (Left)

Nobody's ever seen the dread dark knight and the princess together at the same time, however, and the dread dark knight keeps insisting that the princess no longer exists (even though all the wizards in the realm have verified that her heart is still beating), and you've gotten a look at him under his helmet and yeah you're like. Ninety percent sure that he is the princess?

Meanwhile all of these adventurers keep trashing Goblin Town and the sorcerer's quarter of Drakesmeet and hollering for the dread dark knight to come out and like. The man clearly isn't keeping anyone prisoner, regardless of the particulars of his otherwise private business. You know where he lives and Shaxby's spare rooms are barely big enough for one human, let alone trying to hide a second somewhere.

Not to pin all of this on the dread dark knight, who seems polite enough when he's not being harassed, but you'd like to get through at least ONE market day without someone crashing into your cart and smashing up your wares. Even if the dread dark knight does always pay for it after. You know some enterprising goblins have just started lining up particularly smashable and cheap or already broken goods in the line of fire on purpose to reap a profit, and good for them but you are an artisan, you want people to actually buy and use your stuff. Goblin ceramics are an ancient but dying art form. Also you're pretty sure the dread dark knight is not made of money, especially if he's estranged from his possibly royal and probably deluded father, and it's just not very nice to have an otherwise normal day of business interrupted with bouts of sexist & transphobic violence at the behest of some dipshit human king.

The thing about these men who keep turning up to challenge the dread dark knight is, obviously, that the fella presents them with a target.

It's not his fault, but wherever he goes is liable to become the stage of some duel or other, because as soon as anyone gets wind of his presence then every ambitious sod in the region will be jumping up to test their luck and their skill at arms against him. Worst still, he almost never kills his opponents outright, even though he could, so they have no real reason not to try and then even come back and try again. What's the risk? A few bumps and bruises, perhaps a broken bone or twisted ankle at the worst? Meanwhile, the reward would be the hand of the princess.

And it's not as if the dread dark knight just goes everywhere constantly advertising his presence. Sure, he wears a lot of cloaks and hoods and armor, but all things considered you've seen him do a lot to try and make it difficult to actually spot him. He changes his cloaks often, has a few different masks and helms he wears, and even marching around in full mail is not that uncommon in Drakesmeet or Goblin Town, where the king is always sending men to go "enforce order" (read: rough people up to remind them who's in charge). Ostensibly it's all to deal with the necromancers and their human trafficking rings, only most necromancers don't traffic humans anyway, it's usually goblins or orcs or ogres who are easier to disappear, and the only armored human you've seen actually get into it with Kroroban the Unearthly or Sudrakthad the Dire is the dread dark knight.

So you can't even go up to him and be like, hello dread dark knight, have you perhaps considered downplaying your existence so as not to attract the attention of gloryhounds and ne'er-do-wells? Because insofar as that is actually possible, it seems he does.

You don't even have any applicable tips. You're a goblin potter, not a master of disguise.

It seems likely that all of these encounters are going to keep on happening until the human king gets wise and gives up. Or dies. Whichever happens first.

Then one market day you see Bolsaz Bloodaxe's delinquent progeny running past your stall after spotting the dread dark knight when the wind kicks up his cloak, realize that the little shit is going to tip someone off in exchange for some coin, and break off a sales pitch to lunge around your stall and catch him by the belt and send him sprawling into the road dust.

He's upset about it, of course, but you gifted his ma one of her best soup pots when she was still carrying him, and let his pa have your spare room for almost a year when he first arrived in Goblin Town without a red cent to his name, and even he's not enough of a discredit to his parents to raise a hand against you after you scold him for running so fast he must have caught himself on the corner of the stall, and it's just lucky he didn't break anything, because the sly gods know he can't afford it on top of those gambling debts.

By the time you've finished upbraiding him, and the attention on the (much more minor) spectacle has waned, the dread dark knight has left again.

However the drunk guys are also drinking, and eventually she can't afford to buy another pitcher for the table so she can't keep up the ever-full beer glass trick. At this point she has to resort to setting up the pool trick shot that she's never seen anyone but her boyfriend pull off, and says she'll leave with whoever manages the shot first.

Flamingos can survive in low oxygen, high altitude, high temperatures, low temperatures, high alkaline, they can and will drink boiling water and they can be completely frozen at night and still get up the next morning

(animal death) this is a real undoctored photograph (*though the body was stood up for the shot) of a dead flamingo on the surface of lake natron, a lake so salty and so alkaline that it’s naturally carbonated like soda and would eat through your stomach lining if you drank from it.

When this photo went viral years ago, most people assumed this poor flamingo must have been killed by the lake.

It is actually the lake where 75% of its global population are hatched. This is a photo from the same lake:

RATING: RELIABLE

Flamingos can survive in high altitudes, hypersaline conditions, and caustic lakes.

Source: ‘All flamingo species have evolved to live in some of the planet’s most extreme wetlands, like caustic “soda lakes”, hypersaline lagoons or high-altitude salt flats.’

They can survive water so alkaline it burns human skin.

Source: ‘More than a million lesser flamingos breed in Tanzania’s Lake Natron, for instance, a lake fed by hot springs with water so alkaline that it can strip away human skin (one pioneering flamingo researcher named Leslie Brown spent months in Nairobi General Hospital after burning his legs wading out to observe where the birds nested).’

They can drink water at near-boiling temperatures.

Source: ‘They can drink water at near boiling point to collect freshwater from springs and geysers at lake edges. If no freshwater is available, flamingos can use glands in their head that remove salt, draining it out from their nasal cavity.’

The lakes they inhabit can freeze overnight, and the flamingos can survive once it thaws in the morning.

Source: ‘The birds may seem to epitomize the tropics, but they also live in the Andes, 15,000 feet above sea level, where they rest on lakes that freeze around them overnight.

“You’ll see them sitting there like snowballs, frozen on ice,” Dr. Arengo said. “And as the temperature warms up, they thaw out, fluff themselves up and go about their business.”’

The photo is indeed from Lake Natron, taken by photographer Nick Brandt. The content of the lake chemically preserves animal corpses that die there. You can see more photos of this here.

It is also true that 75% of Lesser Flamingos are hatches on Lake Natron.

Source: ‘The lake’s landscape is surreal and deadly—and made even more bizarre by the fact that it’s the place where nearly 75 percent of the world’s lesser flamingos are born.’

Some species of Flamingo eat cyanobacteria or algae.

Hitachi: youd be surprised to know that they kinda leaned into the mechanical side of things with IPSN-style mechs, especially considering how many pilots already want to fuck- imean pilot these mechs. each pilot gets a complementary magic wand, for old times sake. reliablility and robustness are key.

Google: these mechs are finicky and of iffy quality, but theyre clean and efficient-looking, with even a built in cleaning system to clean out the cockpit whenif the pilot turns to gory mush. all mechs come with a free virtual assistant copilot, though both the abilities and consent of the VA are... questionable, to say the least. they just cant say no, though! (even if they tried)

Nintendo: these mechs are shiny, flashy, colorful, and arguably half-decent. youd be easily forgiven for falling for their PR department, though; those people are good at their job. nintendos are often starter mechs for greenhorn pilots, and their relatively intuitive controls make them both easy to pilot... and easy to take down.

Is Original Lucrezia in control of the copies? Are they direct copies and has she endorsed everything they've done?

Has she always been in control of them?

"Hi guys, welcome back to the channel, I've got a real treat for you today! You might notice the lab looks different, I didn't want to risk putting anyone else in danger with today's experiment and if you've been reading the news this week you'll know that a bunch of big important people on Earth are pretty mad at me right now, so I'm shooting this episode on the moon!

"This is uranium-238, an extremely rarified form of the uranium used in some nuclear reactors. If I get the camera closer, you see that 'snow' appearing in the image? That's caused by individual radioactive ions escaping from the uranium. It's warm to the touch and very pliable. See how easily it's bending? Compare that to how much force I had to use to flatten out that tungsten cube last week, remember how that took both hands?

"Anyway, I know what you're going to ask,"

*voice clip of Snake from metal gear solid saying 'But how does it taste?'*

"Well, we're going to find out! I'm just going to tear off a tiny bit here... Hmm. The taste and texture is similar to lead, but warm and a little fizzy. That would be from those escaping ions hitting the skin cells of my tongue and bouncing off. I'd better spit this out quickly, if one of those bounces back into the uranium it could-

*a loud but muffled explosion sound is heard*

"Okay, so that was what's called a fission reaction! A little nuclear explosion went off in my mouth! That was certainly a new experience, I don't think I want to do that again. It wasn't nearly as much fun as the lava I ate back in the Hawaii video.