happy 20 year anniversary of Neil banging out the tunes!
though every rat is special, it's a wonderful and unusual thing for their accomplishments to be remembered and cherished by so many people so many years later. we're all so fortunate to know about the rat who banged out the tunes!
thank you to all the people who sent me reference photos of their beloved rats for this piece!!! credits under the cut!
@joe-spookyy Ben and Socrates
@gooseontheinternet Chamomile and Beefy
@runawayy-rat Bartholomäus and Emo
@theunholystromboli Macrogryphosaurus, Xenoceratops, and Graciliraptor
@techlecticwtch Solas and Dorian
@merlyn-bane Roslyn and Rizzoli
@logictoinsanity Luna and Buttercup
@hagsthehag Orphie, Psyche, Calypso, Ariadne, and Eury
a tiny heist went down to rescue Rise and now he's being taken everywhere by Reid Wiseman because he's extremely important (he was supposed to be left on the craft, he has instead been adopted)
Something that both worries me and intrigues me about Pokopia is that the way the pokemon are saved from the apocalypse is by hiding them in the PC system, but only caught pokemon can be put in. However, I highly doubt that the humans didn't think of that, didn't walk through the park and look at the Pidgeys and Skwovets and all the pokemon in the routes they walk through and decide to leave them to their fate.
So I had a few ideas about what could happen. I think there'd be a program set up, where pokeballs are free and widely distributed with community goals of catching as many pokemon as possible. Groups of trainers who normally wouldn't think twice about a low level or common pokemon, combing through Route 1s world wide and methodically catching every Caterpie and weedle they can find. Hundreds upon hundreds showing up to lakes and fishing spots with baskets of pokeballs, and fishing up Magikarp and Lotad and Goldeen and Arrokuda, catching each one.
Experienced trainers heading out to spots populated with dragons and high level pokemon, delving through caves and through thick jungles. Heading out to places like the hottest deserts and the coldest mountains and icy plains.
But it's not enough, pokeballs aren't a guaranteed catch, and some pokemon just can't be caught, they break out too easily and flee too quick. So a set of engineers and scientists converge on Silph Co, the company that produced the Masterball, and they propose a new design. Similar to a Park Ball or a Masterball, a pokeball with a guaranteed catch that doesn't register to a person, but to the PC system itself. No chance of abuse, and whatever pokemon caught is automatically deposited into the system. The President considers it and agrees, and all production capacity it put towards making them, and they are a huge success.
Now anyone who knows how to travel through the wilderness safely can go out and catch any pokemon, even the very strong ones. A system is set up to track the kinds and amount of pokemon deposited, with a goal for every species to have a population in the PC large enough to revive the species if all others are lost. Every individual pokemon saved is a relief, and every species (or evolutionary line) that passes that threshold of enough caught to revive the species is celebrated.
Some people start collecting evolution items, to try and also store in the system the same way. Auspicious armor and evolution stones and steel coats and kings rocks, a pokemon may evolve without it but some of them need it, and the loss of evolution is another thing that should be prevented.
So in those years or months before they leave, all humanity comes together to save as many as possible. There will be so many lost, unfound and uncaught, and most of them will perish but there will be so very many that are safe. Some may survive, hibernating away where the chaos of the Earth cannot touch them, but now there's so very many that have been rescued.
I refuse to believe that the wild pokemon would be left to their fate, and so this is my best idea of what would have happened.
POKOPIA ENDGAME SPOILERS: DO NOT READ IF YOU HAVE NOT HIT CREDITS
This is genuinely the best plot of a Pokemon Game I have ever played or seen. It's not heavy handed, it's optional, even, but it drives you to adventure. You start out with the driving question: what happened here? And that drives you to keep searching, keep exploring. Through that exploration, you find hints and stories.
You are a pokemon, ever so lovingly tucked safely into the PC box as the world falls to disaster after disaster. Humanity is leaving for the stars, and they cannot bring you with them, but goddamn if they aren't going to try and keep you alive. They plan to visit, plan to be so much more involved, but they made an error. They don't have enough fuel to come back.
So you are saved by a fallback, a 'just in case'. Every time you make a new habitat, the PC releases a pokemon out into the world that might survive there. You are here because someone thought to try for the sake of others, and now you can go out and create so much good.
And you do, you help create flourishing, thriving environments, and it all leads back to a strange tower in the very first area, built by someone you know if tricking you. But they're asking for help and you give it anyway. You give food and supplies and furniture and electricity, and then finally, a photo of you. The party poppers won't fit, so you set them off outside with the mentor whose been there the whole time.
The building is a rocket, a rocket with enough fuel to get off the ground, and a rocket with enough fuel to bring the humans back. You know none of this, you're a Ditto and you can't read, but it is your actions, your hope and your drive to find your friend that sends them the very thing they need to come home.
And on that ship is a photo of you, a pokemon, in a world lush with life and alive again, taken after the humans left. It's proof it's safe to come back now, it's safe to come home. The world is ready and you are waiting there for them. The rocket, battered and damaged, reaches the humans, and it's all thanks to you.
Pokopia is a game about how it's always possible to rebuild, to make something amazing out of so little. It is a game about hope, and hope comes to you and to the humans that you send one very late homecoming message to.
I love this game and it's plot so much, this is an absolute 10/10.
I remember an interview with a guy that did the camera work for nature documentaries and he said that baleen whales like these guys were the scariest things to shoot because “They’re the size of a train, they can suddenly appear out of nowhere in dark or murky water and they don’t make a goddamn sound. I was absolutely sure that one of them was going to hit me and well, ‘that’s all folks!’. Gave me a lot of perspective on how I handle myself when filming smaller animals now.”
Unlikely allies and very questionable decisions. Some multiverse dilemas get out of hand so Blue pull the "besties with the Destroyer" card (The oncoming storm, the bringer of darkness)
Life Series existed in the past as a vampire pastime
Vampires can only truly die if they're staked, and getting back up to tier three is honestly not that hard. So what do a bunch of bored vampires do? Annually hunt and kill each other for sport!
Scott's vampire social circle was very big, and he got invited by Grian to try out this new game, so got to have fun and murder his friends, probably for a prize of some sort. It's a way to keep up fighting and survival skills, hang out with friends, and generally flaunt being a walking violation of the laws of nature.
And then a witch puts Scott to sleep, and none of his friends ever really found this address if his. So he's stuck there until he wakes up. To his surprise, when he does wake up, it's to descendants of some of his dear friends, children and grandchildren of siblings and cousins, drawn to this place perhaps because of the unknown vampire in their lineage. Scott finds this hilarious, but doesn't let it stop him from trying to: A, get out, and B, murder everyone who gets in his way
However! When Scott woke, some of his friends were...notified, in a way. And now a group of very old vampires are descending on the location of a thought-dead friend
Au where Scott being over a thousand years old actually *meant* something, and eternal life has more monstrous consequences than anyone realizes
Scott is attractive, that's established several times over, but in this au, they begin to notice... discrepancies. Where one of them describes a square jaw with stubble, another describes a thinner face with no facial hair. Different shaped noses, eyes set in different places on the face. Scott appears different to all of them, and he appears to them as what they'd find pretty or handsome. Someone they'd look at and trust. But it's too perfect, too similar to someone long dead for some, too exactly right for others. And none of the stories line up.
So what they're seeing isn't what he looks like, it's a mask, an illusion. None of them really want to say it aloud, a monster human shaped is better than one not, in some ways. Not when all the others haven't changed shape, when even Owen is just...a person with some extra powers.
Until one fight, when someone lands a lucky hit with a silver sword. Maybe Apo when she is getting turned, maybe Martyn during one of their various fights. All that matters is that someone lands a lucky blow, right to that shifting face.
There's no blood, there's a crack, like fractured pottery. Scott's perfect face begins to flicker, turning from a person to a porcelain masquerade mask. The pieces break off, slowly toppling to the ground, as the rest of the illusion falls.
Scott's been dead for a long, long time. He's been drinking blood, slaying people and animals alike and ruling over fledglings and human farms for hundreds and hundreds of years before the witch that cursed him was even a thought in their father's mind.
An Elder Vampire has a bat-like face, with big pointed ears and a massive, gaping maw full of rows of sharp, sharp teeth. Made to rip and tear and drain as much blood from it's prey as possible. It's eyes are many, red and large and sunken in their sockets. Horns stretch out from it's skull, meant to protect from an ambush while drinking, to stop another vampire from going for the throat.
It's tall, a mix of emaciated and muscular, with a big ribcage and a prominent spine. The limbs are too stretched, they end in hands that could crush a skull, with fingers too long with the beginning of webbing between them. Massive bat wings sprout from it's back, but they lay limp, atrophied from years in slumber, incapable of flight in this larger form. It's feet are draconic, with curled claws and shining scales, and a long, thin tail stretches out behind it.
This thing is dressed, in the same cloak and vest and immaculate clothing Scott always wears, fitted perfectly to it, perhaps a bit loose. Someone saw this thing before them, had to spend hours measuring and pinning and hemming clothing to fit this... abomination of nature, and they probably died for knowledge of what they were never meant to know.
It's covered in white fur, tinged with blue, and darkness seems to swirl and drop from it in a pitch-black mist.
Scott smiles then, with those hundreds of teeth, he reaches for the shards of a mask that fuses back together in monstrous hands. He places it gently back on a face it should not be able to cover, and the illusion returns.
There are consequences to life spent as living undead. Whether they are good or bad is up to you, but the loss of humanity is much more real than anything in this town realizes
someone asked me if things were the same in the draconequus au with equestia girls, so continuing off of these: the answer is no it is not the same
considering Twilight can just Be A Draconequus in any dimension and she's still very untrained, girlie struggles very hard to uh... maintain a human shape, especially when Discord is keying her up for fun
over the last several months, we have been implementing a protocol to eliminate karybelle the sheltie’s barking surrounding her mealtimes. we have accomplished this by initially introducing an alternate activity during prep time (stuffed kong) and religiously giving her a time out gated in the yard if she stops that activity to bark, thus delaying her dinner until she’s quiet. this has been extremely successful; she’s gone from barking literally 100+ times during meal prep to barking 0 times, and only occasionally slips up. the behavior she has chosen to replace her meal-prep-screaming (after all, that energy has to go somewhere) is frantically - but silently - running circles around the coffee table to finally slam into a perfect down-stay as her bowl is set down.
this evening as the food was coming out, karybelle seamlessly slipped into her silent circling routine. except after a couple of reps, she abruptly changed course, yeeted herself out the dog door, barked once, and immediately jumped back in to resume her circling.
if that isn’t a demonstration of crystal clear understanding of criteria, i...don’t know what is lmao
pixelskylines
annaxmalina
blakekathryn
jacobvanloon
kaledo-art
snowghoul
gummygunk
dededos
