Idolothrips spectrum (I couldn't find much information on these so I'm not sure whether that spectrum refers to them being variable but none of the others seem to look as strange as this one. Not sure if there's something else going on there) and lepidopsocid
Ophiotettix limosina and phaneropterine
Perola sericea and Melittia sp.
Selandriine and Ghilianella sp.
Holoptilus sp. and Pseudocephalelus bleusei
Chaetochlorops inquilinus and Calodromus sp.
Moluris globulicollis (aka the globeneck globe toktokkie because I can't just leave that name out) and Phycosoma oecobioides
Herdoniine and Cazira verrucosa
Tereticepheus sp. and Moegistorhynchus longirostris
Charistica rhodopetala (there's a gif I can't add here but please watch it) and Tetraglenes hirticornis
Ordgarius magnificus and Papirioides jacobsoni
Exechesops sp. (some have even goofier eyes than this) and Oraesia excavata
Gall Wasps: these wasps produce a chemical that triggers abnormal cell growth in plants, causing the plants to form strange-looking structures around the wasp's larvae
Above: plant growths caused by the larvae of three different species of gall wasp, including Trigonaspis teres, Callirhytis seminator, and Feron izabellae
These tumor-like growths are known as plant galls. They develop in response to chemicals that are injected or secreted by certain insects, mites, and nematodes. Each plant gall forms around the body of a single larva (or, in some cases, a small group of larvae), and the structure serves as both protection and sustenance for the tiny creature developing within.
Above: the plant gall of the oak apple gall wasp, Atrusca quercuscentricola, with a bisected view that shows the larva within
There are many different insects that can trigger the production of plant galls, including certain aphids, psyllids, flies, beetles, scale insects, and caterpillars, but gall-forming wasps are especially diverse. They also create some of the most distinctive plant galls in nature.
Above: the photo at the top shows the plant gall of an unidentified gall wasp from the family Cynipidae, and the photo at the bottom depicts the plant galls of the urchin gall wasp, Cynips quercusechinus
The color, shape, size, and texture of each plant gall varies depending on the species of gall wasp that induces it. Some wasps are associated with plant galls that look like fuzzy little pom-poms; others produce mushroom-shaped structures, colorful discs, cones, pink spheres, cottonballs, etc.
Above: this photo shows a mushroom gall wasp, Heteroecus sanctaeclarae, which produces plant galls that look like tiny mushroom-shaped houses
As this article explains:
Galls are plant growths (similar to tumors) that are induced by various organisms such as bacteria, fungi, and insects. Gall wasps have evolved to âtrickâ the plant into forming this growth which they then use for food and shelter as they transform from a larva to an adult.
The wasp larvae secrete chemicals that mimic growth hormones in a particular plant upon hatching. The chemicals trick the oak into growing a gall on its flowers, acorns, leaves, or stems. The larva is then encapsulated by the gall as it grows, waiting patiently inside until its metamorphosis is complete.
Above: Feron parmula, commonly known as the disc gall wasp
Many of these plant galls have elaborate, colorful features that are truly stunning.
Above: the spined-turban gall wasp, Cynips douglasii
Gall-forming wasps are only parasitic toward plants -- they do not parasitize other animals. The larvae feed on the nutritive tissues of their plant galls, but the adult wasps do not feed at all.
Above: plant galls produced by two different species of gall wasp
These wasps also have a peculiar reproductive cycle:
Many species have alternating generations, meaning all of the adults emerging from galls during one time of the year are female-only, while the adults emerging in a different season have both males and females. Most species have females that can reproduce using parthenogenesis when they emerge by themselves. This means that their eggs are essentially clones of themselves. Whatâs more, some species appear not to have any males at all.
Above: the huge, fuzzy plant galls of Striatoandricus furnessae and Druon pattoni
Scientists have named and described roughly 1400 species of gall wasp, and that's likely just a fraction of the number of species that actually exist, as gall-forming organisms are widely understudied.
Above: close-up of a gall wasp larva nestled in its plant gall
Once the larva transforms into a fully-developed wasp, it finally emerges from its gall.
Above: adult gall wasps
Sources & More Info:
Forest Watch: Gall Wasps
Gallformers: What the Heck is a Gall?
Southwick Country Park Nature Reserve: Ecosystem Engineers
Insect Systematics and Diversity: Comparative Anatomy of Venom Glands Suggests a Role of Maternal Secretions in Gall Induction by Cynipid Wasps
Entomology Today: Gall-Inducing Wasps Have Enlarged Venom Glands, Study Finds
i like wasps better than honeybees because with bees theyll start getting stressed and then the bee people are like "oh just relax and they'll know you mean no harm :3" and it doesn't work and everybody is like "bees are sooo sweet :3 if âïž youre pure of heart." and the bees are coming and you don't know which way they want you to go and they don't like you. meanwhile a wasp stands in front of you and says "hey man back off" and you say "no prob bob" and one thousand internet strangers say "Eugh a Wasp!? I am Becoming an Oil Executive" ive shared a sandwich with a yellowjacket ive shared sushi with a yellowjacket ive shared an apple with a yellowjacket ive picked up a bald faced hornet off the ground and warmed it with my hands and given it a ride and i tried to help a carpenter bee down a step and it got into angry kitten stance and said No Thank You! respectfully! but european honeybees say We own the entire forest and there is nowhere you can retreat fast enough And also we're famous so suck it lmao
I think about this too! Wasps seem mean because they are giving you adequate warning that you might accidentally crush them and then they would have to sting you.
But bees? Bees don't give you warning. Without even looking in your direction, bees just say "Heh. I fucking dare you"
I made a bird fairy/fae! My dear mutual and I have played around with the fantasy genre and now fae are some messed up buggy bois, but I also wanted some fluffy ones. SO, we get these things. They eat their more bug like cousins and live in villages and their barns. More show up in an area when a baby is born, because if anything its a good way to have some of their relatives get lured in.
They aren't as inclined to steal children? They may kill a cow or strike you with some bad luck or disease, but they gave up a good chunk of their magic when they started living so intimately near man.
Yep that's a second mouth.
Bugs do like to burrow, and they had to become less noticeable to their neighbors now didn't they?
Suddenly woke up around 4PM with a vivid idea for a DnD-style fantasy anime, about a generic fantasy hero having to save the world with a representative member of each of the other four major allied races: gnoll, dryad, naga, nurikabe. (No, I don't know why my brain decided on those.) This has been a recurring event through history to repel an ancient evil, but it's been centuries since the last time.
There's a major gulf of cultural understanding because the human kingdom has since moved far from the others, but it's still traditionally the human hero's role to translate. So, the human kingdom's court mage casts a spell on him so he can see them the usual way with one eye, but as humanized versions showing what they seem like to their *own* races with the other; he has to swap around an eye patch to go between them or he gets dizzy from the overlay.
Character descriptions and more worldbuilding under the cut (sorry, they're rambling notes I just hammered out quickly before I forgot anything; no names yet because I thought of it literally hours ago):
gnoll, female (cleric, general, war hero)
normal: sounds like a man talking like a yakuza, seems to belittle the hero and mockingly call him princess
- as it turns out, "princess" is how she translates a standard term of respect for gnolls (since they're matriarchal)
- just as he thinks she seems like a man at first, she has trouble seeing him as anything other than a fresh-faced young woman (when in fact he's a fresh-faced young man)
humanized: calm MILF that talks politely and intelligently about strategy, is very sympathetic and motherly
- gnoll would also like to actually act more like this, and puts on a little bit of an act for the other gnolls to be an encouraging leader they can look up to
- once he sees her like this, the hero realizes that her apparent insults and threats were just her way of being an encouraging parental figure he could confide in
- even though she tries to be more of a maternal figure to him, he has the hots for her
dryad, female (champion, guardian)
normal: cool, mysterious green elf maiden with long pink hair, butterfly wings and black insectoid eyes (evokes the way Tezuka and Cyborg 009's creator sometimes drew women with solid, shiny black eyes)
- has wings and eyes because of the caterpillars that nest in her tree's branches; is incredibly strong because she can tap into the weight and strength of her tree, despite looking like a waif
- speaks like a cultured princess
humanized: more orc/gobliny bruiser type, very buff, though still has wings; has a face like a Titmouse female character, e.g. the washed-up star in Ballmastrz: 9009
- talks in a very rude, slangy way; other dryads always speak in haiku-like metaphors, so her direct speech feels this way to them
- since she looks so human begin with, the magic doesn't alter her much, so her green skin and sharp teeth make her look less human than the others this way
- apart from style (scruffy, puffy 80s hair instead of long, neat locks; tattered Tinkerbell dress instead of elf gown) and buffness, the only major way she's different is having wide, crazy eyes with tiny pupils instead of insectoid black eyes
naga, male (accomplished wizard)
regular: big, scary, buff anthro snake guy, lower body is completely snake; face doesn't emote, speaks only in short, terse sentences, hisses constantly
- is actually about half the size of most nagas
- early on they see a pillar sculpted in the shape of a naga, and he sheepishly has to explain to the hero that that's how big nagas normally are
- keeps a fanny pack with his spell components and a magical heating rock for regulating his body temperature in it
- race is known for being highly religious, devoted to their goddess; the reason for this is their species doesn't normally have childcare, so instead every naga is raised by a manifestation of their goddess directly, though their connection to her fades to almost nothing by adulthood
humanized: little scrawny guy with long black hair that covers half his face; kind of evokes the main character of WataMote, only genderswapped and with flat hair more like Sadako
- whiny, scared nerd; kind of evokes Kobeni, but without the badassery to compensate, apart from being a talented wizard
- the human hero was scared of him but also thought he was really cool before; now, pretty underwhelmed by him but still grows to like him as a friend
- he gets bullied by the dryad, and before the magic vision kicks in the hero thinks there's serious racial tension between them; it turns out it's just kind of playful bullying, though, and they're each relieved to have a member of a familiar race there
- though the naga is big and burly next to the dryad in reality (but she's still super-strong and can easily physically overpower him), he's a little skinny guy next to the more orc-like humanized version of her
- the hero thought he was intensely religious at first, always invoking the blessing of his goddess; after the sight kicks in, he realizes the naga is just always crying for mommy
- the hero thought the naga was cold for usually hissing in his own language and refusing to translate for him; turns out it's because he's just mumbling to himself constantly, and it's usually pretty lame and embarrassing stuff
- the hero can also use the magic vision to look back on memories; he realizes that at one point he commented on how the naga didn't talk much and he had trouble understanding him (very hissy voice, of course); he realizes then that when he was hissing to himself, the naga was bragging to himself about how he's at least confident in his ability to speak the common language, which is very difficult for nagas with their snake-like mouths; the hero saying that actually crushed him
nurikabe, male (not especially esteemed among his race, but they're now a very scattered diaspora, and he is known for being a deadly assassin by the other races)
regular: to the hero he just seems like a big, cute, fluffy mascot kind of design that's lazy and flops over on him constantly to snooze
- in this POV, the hero can't understand what he's saying it all, it just seems like cute animal noises that only the gnoll understands
- the naga and dryad can't understand him either, but still think he's a scary monster
- this is also the impression the hero gets just because he has no idea what a nurikabe is; to people who know better (humans included), he's a terrifying man-eating beast
- the hero does see him eat monsters, but it seems like a cute little thing where he just gulps them down instantly, Kirby style
- obviously, based more on the traditional nurikabe design than Shigeru Mizuki's
- nurikabes are chameleons that can blend in with any wall, ceiling, or floor (like many obscure old DnD monsters), or even (like in myth) just turn into a totally invisible barricade
humanized: a grizzled old DILF with a rough past full of regrets, shows great remorse for the things he's done
- kind of evokes Solid Snake
- he slumps against the hero because of an old injury that makes it painful to stand or walk for long periods
- he and the gnoll get along, talk about the old days sometimes
- hero realizes that the cute animal noises he made with a placid face were actually his traumatized accounts of events from his past--people he mugged, kidnapped, murdered
More wordbuilding and plot notes:
he's only bound to the other members of his party to be able to see them like this, other races (and even others members of these races) still seem the same to him
though it's symbolically his eye, he can also hear them differently and understand them speaking other languages when that eye is uncovered
they spend the series exploring a dungeon that is all bizarrely spatially distorted, kind of like M.C. Escher's art or House of Leaves, with huge empty areas that go off into a bizarre void; the building itself twists off in strange formations, some plant-like, some fractal or otherwise mathematical
once a week they can teleport back to a major city to restock on supplies
humans once lived in a kingdom that was central to the other races, and served as the go-between, which is why the human hero was traditionally the translator; however, in the intervening centuries the human kingdom has moved far out, and many humans (the hero included) have never even met another non-human
the hero can't read, so he also has no access to information about the other races, and can only go by what the officials of the court try to cram in at the last minute before he goes to represent them; in a way this is a boon, though, since he has no pre-formed prejudices other than those based on what they look and act like
it takes a while for the eye magic to kick in, so for the first day or so he gets to know the others as they seem from a human perspective
as the series goes on, he comes to see how the others actually do act like the humanized view of them
- well, kinda--the way other people even of your own race see you isn't necessarily the real you, or how you see yourself; he helps the other characters realize things about themselves
the other races are also distant from each other, which is why they need a "translator" (even sharing a common language); the dryads and nagas live close to each other and are on friendly terms, same with the gnolls and the nurikabe, but each finds the other two races strange and difficult to understand
- until the hero gets his magic sight, the gnoll is the only one who understands the nurikabe
each race sent a letter or ambassador ahead of time to tell the human kingdom what to expect from their champion; the hero was given these descriptions, but has trouble placing who is who because they're so different from his impression of them (of course matching what he sees with the magic eye)
In the intelligent mature MILF perspective, the gnoll tells them that she is going to set up "a protective perimeter to keep enemies at bay." The hero swaps his eyepatch and sees that she's lifting a leg to mark their territory
The dryad stops her at the last minute. In the maiden view she seems to be reasonably saying that would be a bad idea, in the bruiser view she's screaming "IF YOU TAKE A LEAK EVERY MONSTER WILL KNOW WE'RE HERE YOU MANGY MUTT"
Previously, the hero had the impression that the naga was even more religious than the gnoll, even though she's a cleric. He then realizes that the naga's devout prayers are actually him screaming "Mommy, I'm scared! Mommy, help me!! MOOOOMMMYYYYY"
At some point, the hero sees how he looks to the others (in each representation flipped to be a member of that character's race, except for the nurikabe, who has lived among humans more than his own race). The gnoll sees him as a girl, though an optimistic and likable one, and a strong warrior; the naga thinks it's kind of weird he looks like a plant, but likes that he's figuratively and literally warm; the nurikabe sees him as tragically naive and vulnerable; and the dryad sees him as this oblivious little squishy thing that stumbles around and accidentally starts fires, but is still funny and fun to be around.
More under the cut:
The hero does eventually describe for the others how he sees them. The naga is extremely flattered to hear how cool he seems from the human perspective.
In general, the naga's cool arms crossed pose as the snake man shifts in the humanized view to crossing his arms more like he's hugging himself and tapping his foot nervously (the hero realizing that the tip of his tail was always wiggling)
There would be a point where the dryad gives an opponent a serious verbal teardown before kicking their ass, showing what values are important to her and what she's spent her life striving for; in that moment, the hero's two images of the way she's acting unify
The hero starts to see the others as emoting appropriately even when they're not in the humanized view, realizing now how they express what they're feeling
At some point, the others learn that the hero can't read. He is the only one that can't read. They all take turns helping him learn.
The hero saved his kingdom once before this with a human band of adventurers, which is why he was the champion the human kingdom chose. He was the leader then, though, and is disheartened to hear that the gnoll will be the leader, and he will be the "cultural translator." He has no idea how he's supposed to act in just the role of "cultural translator," especially knowing nothing about the cultures he's translating for. As a result, he's initially resentful of the gnoll, but eventually comes to like her the most (as well as develop a huge crush on her).
Of course, because of the magic eye, he ends up actually taking on the role of cultural translator. There are many instances where one character is being misunderstood by the others, and he has to step in for them. As a result, he develops close relationships with all of them.
The history of the dungeon is just a take on the Tower of Babel. In this version of the story, however, the gods' punishment not only separates the races, but also completely inverts the tower into a dungeon that extends deep into the earth, and is still growing downwards to this day. The tower/dungeon is itself alive from the magic of the curse, and in a constant state of pain and fear. Because of the intensity of how the gods cursed it, the more it grows, the more it tears apart the nature of reality around it. It takes members of the five races that built the tower to venture down to its "head" and give it peace by coming together and understanding one another once more. It used to be that this needed to be done every fifty years; the last heroes were so successful that the tower/dungeon slept a few centuries before waking to its nightmares again. However, this means that the tower/dungeon is now deeper than ever.
In fact, all of the dungeon monsters are manifestations of these waking nightmares. There's even an idea that the tower/dungeon's nightmares retroactively created everything in existence, even the races that built it and the gods that unintentionally brought it to life.
For everything we do here, please be sure to be careful with what you edit, and restart your computer to lock things in.
If you don't have access to the Group editor, (likely to happen if you're on base windows) you can do this as well by opening your Registry Editor app, then inputting this after your 'computer' or whatever the initial segment is. (Mine is computer. If I just try and paste the below string it gets SO mad at me)
Navigating to your "turnoffwindowscopilot", hit modify, and set the value data to 1.
If done correctly, it'll look like this.
While we're at it, you can also get rid of the integrated search, (or that thing where it searches the web when you search anything, whether or not you want it to) and such through regedit as well.
Navigate to your "DisableSearchBoxSuggestions" bit, if you don't see it, you can make it by right clicking and creating a new registry D-Word key of that exact name. Edit the key, set it to 1. It'll look like this if you do it right!
To get rid of Windows Spotlight, (The thing where it pulls up ten billion pages on windows start page, shoving ads in your face and cluttering everything) we go to
And set "Enabled State" To 0. If you do it right, it'll look like this!
Disabling edge on startup will also help a fair deal with processing speed and the like. This you can do in all sorts of ways, the easiest being turning it off entirely on startup through settings in the like.
If you want to kill it *entirely*, though? :)
In regedit, run along to Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft
Navigate to your MicrosoftEdge key subcategory. If you don't see it, you can make one! Note, this is a KEY, not a d-word. *inside* that subcategory, we want to either make or find the D-Word key of PreventLaunchEdge and set that to 1 in the same way as all the others.
It'll look like this.
Aaaand while we're here, I'd HIGHLY recommend shanking Killer Networking Services. It's just bloatware. (Ostensibly it's supposed to monitor your network bandwidth and even things out, but that really means it's constantly monitoring and pinging things, which eats up the bandwidth you DO get, and also chunks your computer's processing power.) Getting rid of it entirely is borderline impossible, since it's set to redownload on regular updates and intel is very pushy with its updates.
This you can do by opening your Services.msc, which basically shows you all the background stuff that Windows does. Find Anything with Killer in the name, right click it, go to properties, and disable startup. It should look like this, if done successfully. It will probably reenable itself in time/in later updates for windows, but it's a quick fix. I'd also check your TaskScheduler app to make sure that nothing's scheduled to open up there, either.
If you CAN completely kill Killer services through uninstalling and the like, I would warn that at very least for my computer, the only ethernet/lan support applications that are available ARE Killer's. When you download updates, you really do have to do it manually and ONLY download the ethernet services, or just be cool with not having Lan functionality.
One last thing, not a shit application but is a shit service. If your computer's constantly overheating or just warm, you likely have Turboboost enabled. (Default setting that you can't change) If you want to be able to turn it off and drop your temps by like 40 degrees, in Regedit go to
(Note- This isn't the string copy paste from the reddit thread, this is mine that does the same thing. If my string doesn't work for you, check the reddit thread string. If that doesn't work either, you can follow the path and find it pretty easily. Probably has like, one letter of difference somewhere. The bits all start the same, though, so it's easy to find.)
and go to "attributes". Set the value from 1 to 2, and now in your advanced Power Plan settings in control panel, you'll be able to *see* turbo boost and turn it off.
It'll look like this, and in power options, a successful disabling of boost should look like this.
Turning off quick startup's also a good call, since that basically stops your restarts from actually shutting things down properly.
GOOD LUCK OUT THERE YALL. MAKE SURE TO CLEAN YOUR PC!
I would like to once again recommend to you all Winero Tweaker, a free program that lets you adjust a bunch of windows settings with a single click instead of digging through 30 different setting screens and registry entries.
There's well over a hundred settings, here's just a few of them:
(sorry the classic taskbar option no longer works with current windows 11 version)
Fair warning: This is a powerful tool which means it can also do some damage if you don't know what you're doing, but every setting comes with an extensive explanation, as you can see in the Ads and unwanted apps screenshot.
This tool will even turn windows 11 from a bloated mess into a (more or less, this tool isn't magic) usable operating system.
I cannot believe there's absolutely no way to watch free shows and movies anymore, there are too many paid streaming platforms and pirating websites have viruses and ads preventing you from watching it uninterrupted((.)) id rather follow the rules and purchase media moving forward because it is too inconvenient. Seriously, free and no ads or viruses with 1080p streaming is DEAD.
Exactly! It's freaking annoying when I want to watch movies but I would have to subscribe to like 24 different services . Just to watch the shows that I like.
i like using streaming apps but there are waaaay too many and they're all stealing my data .i wish there was a secure and organized way to have millions of shows and movies available one one app. but alas. we've truly gone full circle back to cable + now it spies on you. its a real shame. i dont want to fill my device storage with tons of boring and stupid cash grabs.
My housemate and I have been working on a story, me writing and them illustrating, and I'm extremely excited about it. Here is the first chapter with one of her drawings!
Taking Inventory (<that's the chapter title)
Verity had an extra toe. It was not the envy of her peers, nor an abomination whispered about by the lavishly dressed. It was not her most closely guarded secret, she had not grown up with the habit of always wearing socks or never going swimming even if the opportunity was nearly unavoidable. In fact, no one, not even her family, knew about it. This was because, until yesterday, she had been in possession of a perfectly ordinary number.
Hugh decided he could spare her one of his old shoes.They were sitting on the two uncomfortable wooden chairs that made up half of the sparse furnishing of his attic apartment, him on the one closer to the wall, leaning to keep his head from hitting the slanted ceiling. Though she was over frequently, he always gave her the guestâs seat- in the center of the room where the A-frame was highest. He only had two chairs up there because of her company, after all.
The attic smelled of the wooden walls (or ceiling, considering their angle) and the boxes of overstock pharmaceuticals that had to be stored up in there for lack of space downstairs in the shop, but the pair had been in there long enough that they scarce noticed it, as usual. One of Verityâs leather dress shoes was lying sideways on the rug, knee-high sock discarded on the floor nearby, and she was tugging single-mindedly at the other, grunting as she did so. Her face was pinched into a frown, not of anguish, necessarily, but of concentration- this shoe proving to be a much tougher adversary.
The whole scenario, the two of them alone together, even without the risque detail of a young womanâs lack of footwear, appropriate or otherwise, would have conjured, at the very least, a gasp of reproach from any self-respecting, god-fearing lady of the upper crust, but Hugh had learned long ago that to think of things in terms of what those who garbed themselves in money and disgust found acceptable, was like hitting yourself against the inside of a cage that you had built on your own. The person who had taught him that had just wrestled her other shoe off.
Unfortunately, she hadnât kept a good grip upon it, and the ultimate yank sent it whizzing directly into Hughâs desk, bidding his lamp and pencils a swift journey to the floor.
âSee?!â Verity wiggled her toes, ignoring the mild destruction she had caused. Her feet were side by side, her knees pulled up toward her face and her hands hooked around the edge of the chairâs seat, as best to display the numerical disparity of her digits. Her expression wasnât distraught, or horrified, necessarily- more like mildly annoyed, like one might feel upon finding a new blemish on their face before an important appearance at a dinner party- thinking ahead to the ways she might have to endeavor to hide it. Sure enough, the other foot was unaffected by whatever had suddenly deigned to give her that peculiar gift.
âI mean, you showed me the foot with the extra toe first. I didnât think you were lying about it being only on the one side,â said Hugh, still a little shocked, but taking it in stride, as he did with most things related to Verity. No sense trying to argue away the anomaly- there it was. Almost like it was trying to be a thumb for her right foot, sprouting off the inside edge of the ball. It seemed to him she was able to wiggle it with just as much dexterity as the others.
âYeah, well, I almost had to check to make sure another one hadnât appeared suddenly in the time since I was last looking.â Verity moved to appraise it up close, bending her right leg so that her ankle was resting on her left thigh. âIt wasnât even like I woke up and noticed it, I swear it wasnât there this morning! I mean, to be fair, I didnât wake up and immediately count them-â
âWhat, you donât regularly take inventory?â
âYes âha ha,ââ she responded with absentminded sarcasm, âafter this, maybe Iâll have to start. I knew you had to count the old sawbonesâ pills, I didnât know that responsibility extended to your body parts.â
âOh, you know how it is.â He paused. âWait, hold on- youâre saying it appeared partway through the day? Did one shoe suddenly become really uncomfortable or something?â The shock was wearing off. He was starting to actually pay attention to her story.
âI mean, Iâm pretty well sure, as long as Iâm not losing it- donât .â Hugh closed his mouth and put his hand down. âIt was more of a⊠slowly growing discomfort, I suppose? But yeah- I had to take my shoe off, give it a look without taking too much time, stifle whatever reaction would have been appropriate for a spare bloody toe -no it wasnât bleeding, you know what I mean- and then get my damn shoe back on over it. You saw how hard it was to get this one off, imagine me doing the opposite while in a rush.â
He didnât need to be prompted, the mental image was already tugging at the corners of his mouth. âHow did you manage to take a look at it while on the job? For being a lady, donât they berate you for, like, having feet at all?â
She laughed. âFeet are like opinions, Hugh. They donât mind me having them as long as they canât see them. And to answer your question, I had to pop into a phone booth.â
âHow do you see an opinion?â
âWhat?â A beat, and then she rolled her eyes. âOh, come off it, let me wax philosophical in peace.â
âFair enough.â
Hugh stood up, careful not to bump the ceiling, and moved to close the small, if incongruously ornate window above his bed. Summer had ended, and Autumn was beginning to whine for attention by habitually dropping the temperature of the drafty little room.
The neighborhood pharmacy that he lived above and apprenticed for was, like the majority of the buildings around, a strange shape. Though it was one of the shorter structures on the street, it was still two-and-a-half stories -Hughâs room being the âand-a-halfâ in question- with a silhouette like someone had grabbed the pointy top of a childâs drawing of a house and stretched it skyward, without much caring for whether they pulled straight up. The street that it sat quietly next to, curved in just such a way that the young manâs window looked out longways down the drag, and if one were to peer to the empty space not blocked by steep slopes of neighboring shingles in dull, cool colors, and little metal pipe chimneys bent at angles seemingly disadvantageous for their function, guests might be treated to a scene of commercial bustle and hustle all the way down to the next bend in the road. That is, if he were to have any guests of esteem at all. Verity didnât count.
Hugh took a cursory glance outside before he pulled the window shut, checking to see if the neighborâs cat was sitting in the window across the alley. It wasnât.
âIt has to be magic, right?â He left the windowsill and rocked arduously down to his knees to look under the bed. His legs were long enough that shifts in altitude were tough. âI mean, Meera had that thing with the fishes last year and your mum sees that witch doctor or whatever sometimes.â
âMy aunt does. Did. Definitely not my mum. And donât say âwitch-doctorâ out and about, youâll have some poor gramp in conniptions. You know how they like to pretend everythingâs straight-and-narrow,â said Verity behind him.
âOh, sorry, yeah, your mom would never do that, actually- I misremembered.â He tried to stop remembering the correct alternative as he dug around in the boxes under the bed frame. Verityâs mother was like a glistening steel scythe, in mind and body. Not that she was necessarily very âsharp,â as it were, just that any bit of wheat that stuck out a bit too far to the side was labeled a weed and violently harvested. âHow is your aunt now, by the way?â
âDunno, havenât seen her since I moved out, and I barely knew what was up with her when I saw her more. I bed Daâs kept in touch, but she was always a sight too weird for the old lady to invite âround the old Revel.â
âI suppose you take after her, then, yeah?â He found what he was looking for as she chuckled. A old pair of shoes he hadnât thrown out, not fitting her dapper, leather sensibilities, but good enough to hide an extra digit on a smaller foot than his. He wiped the dust off them, straightened his back, and turned around.âI always liked her stories, though- wha-â
She was leaning back, extending the leg with the new addition as far as it could go toward one shoe, the one close enough to be on the carpet. The tip of her tongue was poking out of her mouth in concentration, and the chair was suggesting that it may be inclined to fall over.
I've really been loving making this, and there is more, so if anybody wants i can update with more chapters and concept art
The setting is kinda Edwardian? Think Series of Unfortunate Events or kinda Over the Garden Wall? Sorta. The idea is that magic exists and people know about it, but most people really try to pretend that it doesn't. There will be more magic stuff later on.
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