perilunesky

From Bruce

Happy N7 Day! I’ll probably do more Mass Effect art later, but for now, I’ve added a new sketch to my series of fan art featuring my favorite Mass Effect NPCs :)

A lot of key smashing ensued, followed by, "No, wait, you have to play it, you have to. Don't ask why. You'll know when you see it."

After spending a substantial few hours with my new dopamine generator, zipping around Gotham as various different heroes, grappling my way across the skyline, and driving my motorbike into walls (sorry, random Gothamites.) I got to the part of the story where Dick Grayson is seen drinking from a bisexual-themed Bludhaven mug (WE WANTS IT, PRECIOUS, WE NEEDS IT), followed by Babs posting a gossip article in the literal batfam group chat (I have no idea when she actually sent it, I keep forgetting to check the chat lmao) where Dick fully leans into being Bruce's son by being the biggest, sluttiest fuckboy imaginable when the male interviewer asks Dick if he has a "type" then describes the way Dick drops his voice to an "intimate purr, his gaze for me and me alone" followed by the most bisexual response ever which can be summarized as "People are gorgeous. All of them. Why restrict myself to an archetype when the world is full of beauty?"

And can I just say, as a slutty, slutty bisexual *chef kiss* love that for him. That and all the nude photoshoot offers he seems to be getting lmao.

Not to mention the people that inhabit it. There's a tendency in Batman media to give Gothamites a very non-specific accent, but I feel like there's been An Attempt to give the citizens of Gotham a bit of a New Jersey drawl with the emphasis on the hard "A" in certain words.

They're also just really fucking funny. You'll be driving around as Nightwing, and people will be smiling and waving at you, and when you rescue people, they'll usually say thank you. Everyone knows Nightwing. Just like they know Robin (and coo at him like aw, hey, little bud, be careful out there, okay?) and Batgirl. But Jayson? Nah. Fuck that. He might have just saved your ass, but you're already booking it down the block, and you're not looking back. That dude is scary.

"Red Hood, what's that guy doing here?" demanded a particularly nasally man as I slammed a GCPD riot cop into a wall for pointing his gun at me.

"Oh hey, that's Red Hood. Dude's huge." Thank you, random citizen. I am indeed a unit.

And then the ultimate one that forced me to pause the game lest I drive my motorbike into the wharf because I was gurgling with laughter like an open drain. "Ew... is that Deathstroke?"

Can you... can you... imagine the psychic damage Jayson just took?

He's driving through the rain. Just got several shades of shit kicked out of him. Nightwing is yammering puns in his ear over comms. And some random mistakes him for Deathstroke. But not just Deathstroke. "Ew, Deathstroke."

Dc: Fantastic. Fantastic work, Nicola. Now how about Dick Grayson?

Nicola Scott, a hero who loves Dick Grayson but who also understands Dick Grayson on a fundamental level:

"ass."

Time meassured in Robins and Commissioner Gordon’s Hair. EDIT PATCH NOTES: Added steph.

Fans of Avatar: The Last Airbender might like this one.

This is a proof of concept earthbender fight scene. It just goes to show what great fight choreography and a few special effects can do.

For bees, there is only one type of sex chromosome, and sex is based on the count. Drones are X, and workers/queens are XX. When unfertilized, the queen gives lays eggs that are only drones, and when fertilized can lay eggs that are workers. Workers can then instead grow up as a queen based on diet and chemical exposure early in life. (We say that they are fed royal jelly which is true but isn’t all that is going on)

[most] Birds however, are WZ chromosomal, which works like human XY, except for birds two of the same is male and one of each is female. WW is male, WZ is females, essential the opposite of the system most mammals use.

However, this can lead to some really weird behavior like with cowbirds which are “egg mimics” which can lay eggs that look like the eggs of other birds. What’s weird about this is that the same species of cowbird can mimic dozens of types of egg. How is this possible?

Well, there are different versions of the Z chromosome for different eggs. So like Z-Robin or Z-Bluebird.

Say you are a cowbird and you grow up in a robins nest. If you are male, you are WW and can find any other cowbird to mate with. If you are female, you are WZ-robin and can mate with any cowbird, and when it comes time to lay eggs, find the type of nest you grew up in and lay eggs there, blending in with the other eggs. Female children will be WZ-robin like you, and males are WW and can mate with any other type of cowbird no problem.

Same thing with like WZ-bluebird or WZ-goldfinch.

Essentially you end up with multiple species of female that share one species of male.

biology is WEIRD

“Actually wolves don’t have hierarchies!  They live in family groups where the ‘alphas’ are mom and dad and the other wolves are their CHILDREN and offer their respect willingly! :D”

and I just have to say

how dare you try to make normative nuclear families out of wolves

Yes, a lot of the old “nature red in tooth and claw” stuff about wolves is nonsense. (Like anything from Jack London.) And anything ‘alpha’ you see sleazy men trying to relate to dating (yikes!) is especially nonsense.

But wolves are complex social creatures and they create complex social structures. Just as you can’t say “THIS is the way human society is structured. Just THIS single way and no other”, so too there is no single form for a wolf pack.  

Some packs are a mom wolf and a dad wolf and their wolf children.  Others are two small ragged packs that combine to form a large pack.  Others are packs where a lone wolf joins and eventually becomes a leader. Others are packs where a grown child-wolf has pushed their parent out of the leadership role.

Speaking of the latter, let’s look at the tale of Wolf 40 and Wolf 42.

Wolf 40, Wolf 41, and Wolf 42 were wild Yellowstone wolves, daughters of the alphas. Their father was illegally killed by hunters and shortly after ambitious Wolf 40 ousted her mother, driving her out of the pack.  Wolf 21 became the new alpha male, and 40′s mate.

Wolves have personalities, and Wolf 40′s personality was “volatile”.  Imagine Scar from The Lion King combined with the boss from Office Space, and you have Wolf 40.  She habitually bullied the other female wolves, attacking them until they expressed abject submission.  And the wolves that got the worst of it were her sisters, Wolves 41 and 42.

Wolf 41 got tired of the bullying and left.  Wolf 42 remained, perhaps because she was close to Wolf 21, the alpha male.  Despite that, Wolf 21 did not interfere when his mate harassed Wolf 42.

Unlike 40, Wolf 42 got along well with the other female wolves, spending time grooming them and relaxing with them. Wolf 40 could have followed her sister’s example and built up positive social bonds. But she didn’t.

One day, Wolf 40 went out on an important task.  She was going to kill another litter of her sister’s pups–having done the same in two previous years.  This isn’t uncommon wolf behavior (but is not universal, as we will see.)  Typically only the alphas breed.

However, Wolf 40 never returned from her important task because Wolf 42–who previously had submitted to her alpha and sister, who had allowed the killing of two previous litters of pups–had had enough.  She fought back.

And the other female wolves jumped to aid her.

Collectively, they killed Wolf 40. Because “alpha” isn’t a magic cloak of protection, it doesn’t even mean “strongest wolf”, it’s just a job title.

The next day Wolf 42 carried her pups, one by one, to her sister’s den.  She set her children among the pups of her dead sister and raised both litters together. And when another wolf in the pack had pups, Wolf 42 carried them to the den to be communally raised as well.  She was the alpha female now and she made the rules, and the first rule was “we don’t hurt pups here.”

As for Wolf 21, he became the mate of Wolf 42.  Maybe he understood that Wolf 40 had been riding for a fall. 

As alpha female, Wolf 42 continued to be supportive and kind towards the other pack members.  Wolves who had been nervous wrecks under Wolf 40 began to relax and come into their own; one of the former omega wolves gained self-confidence and became one of the best hunters.

“Alpha”, for wolves, just means leader.  They might be good leaders, whom you respect, or they might be bad leaders, who fill you with dread.  They might be your parents, or they might not.  Even if they are your mother or father, wolves don’t contextualize those relationships the same way humans do.

But one thing wolves have in common with humans is that they have individual personalities and experiences, and their actions derive from those.  There is no “typical wolf pack.” And I think that’s beautiful.

If you want to learn more about wild wolf dynamics, I recommend reading the annual Yellowstone Wolf Project Reports.  Which are FASCINATING.  There are also some good wildlife specials out there.

Fighter:

Sorcerer:

Bard:

Cleric:

Rogue:

Druid:

Barbarian:

Warlock:

Monk:

Ranger:

Paladin:

Wizard:

In both work and observing, I have learned something about kids. A lot of parents try to get their boys to go fight. Of the young ones that do, they tend to be shy. You get the ones who just swing the boffer swords around with no regard for life, but, mostly, they’re reserved. It’s adorable. I mean, they’re kids.

At which point this six-ish-year-old girl whips out her certificate from the axe throwing booth and says “Nah, I’m fine.”

Seriously, I resent the whole Black Friday thing. Yet if you don’t do it, people think maybe you’re not serious about selling your stuff. (heavy sigh) …Fine. But can we maybe get it over with a week early? Because I hate interrupting people’s holidays.

Many of our Tumblr friends know what this particular discount offer is about: they’ve seen it before. (Last time it was about replacing a dying computer. Which has indeed happened, and we’re waiting for its replacement to arrive: thanks to all who assisted!) …But sort of fifteen hundred or two thousand more people are following this account than were last week about this time (and y’all are very welcome!), and I can’t help but wonder if maybe some of them would like some of this action: a lot of books for CHEAP. (…I mean, thirty-five novels and short works for $44? Looks bargain-ish to me.)

The list of the books on offer is on the product page linked to below. The New Millennium Editions of the Young Wizards novels are there, and all the current Middle Kingdoms works, and a lot more.

…So! For the next twenty-four hours, you can get our entire ebook store’s inventory for USD $44. Just go to this URL and put one of the “I Want Everything You’ve Got” packages in your shopping basket (make sure to tell the page which ebook format you want/need:  Kindle, Nook, Kobo, iBooks/Apple or generic .epub), and then proceed to the checkout. You’ll find (when you’re in the checkout: it won’t do this until then) that the store applies your discount automatically, like this:

…Then you just make the payment by whatever method you prefer, and the store emails you the download links for the files.

(BTW, in case anybody accidentally just goes straight to the main product link  [which doesn’t auto-attach the discount], the discount code is EVERY24. That way if it’s missing from the field in the checkout page, you can put it in yourself.)

…Anyway: Enjoy, all! Thanks for taking the time to check this out. And if this offer’s of no interest to you, would you please consider reblogging it for the attention of others who may? Please & Thank You. :)