#brainy-twilight

[humansbgone]

Poor Clef. I understand why the ants would be wary of an ant nest beetle, but I feel like I remember there being mention of accommodations for species that normally prey on other insects in some way. You know, so they don't have to eat people. Have ant nest beetle macrovolutes ever even been an actual problem for them, or are they just -that- paranoid, where they'll attack species whose protocules prey on theirs, regardless of how the macrovolute versions behave?

Clef's species was socially parasitic on another species of ant entirely, not the yellow crazy ants. This will be gone into in more detail eventually, but I will say this now: The ants' distaste for myrmecophiles has nothing to do with any kind of danger they might pose (the ants appropriated all sorts of dangerous macrovolutes and demivolutes to work for them), but sheerly the audacity of being "useless freeloaders." Even more so, the audacity of being useless freeloaders with the ability to *trick* them.

And the accommodation for carnivorous insects, as we saw in this episode, was just eating arthropods (like isopods) that aren't people (that is, not insects or arachnids).

Of course, this is only a stipulation of the *Swarms.* The Swarms bend the knee to the ants in all regards...and as we saw, *anyone* may be "processed for protein."

[bogleech]

Something that's just occurred to me: What, functionally, is the difference between what's going on with the boo men and anyone else in mortasheen with access to cloning and some method for remotely linking minds (which is to say, the average mortasheen citizen)?

Not much really; the line between citizens and monsters is very blurred, and a “monster trainer” could themselves end up becoming a new species of monster. The Boo men however are of kind of legendary power, and their “hive mind” is unusually effective as well. I like to think it’s a closely-guarded secret amongst them, like at some point some monsters formed a cabal and ascended themselves this way.

[atomi-cat]

Why are Malton's arms cracked?

I have yet to get to that story.

[sammiesquirrel]

Wait, what do you mean 'anymore'? I thought Sammie was weird because no toon had abilities like that before, but you're saying they used to and he's weird because he still does? How long ago did toons -stop- having those abilities then?

all toons had the usual toon abilities up until a couple hundred years ago when something happened (exactly what is an underlying plot in the comic so spoilers) and they just mysteriously stopped being born with them. so essentially, toon abilities in sammie’s world eventually died out and just became a forgotten chapter in history books. no one knows why this happened but many came to the conclusion that toons just didn’t need them anymore so they, in a sense, “evolved” out of them. that in itself is questionable seeing as they made toons’ lives a lot easier but i digress… toons in sammie’s world have been without abilities for a good 300 years or so, so no one really questions it anymore. so yeah Sammie is special because he’s the first toon in at least 300 years to be born with these toon abilities that were thought to have died out a long time ago. 

also, i should mention that he keeps his abilities a secret from the general public save for his dad and a few close friends, hence why there’s not a big uproar going on over him… sammie used his abilities in his cartoons as well which is what made them so successful and popular, but everyone just thinks they were really good special effects and are completely unaware they were the real deal. hope that made sense!!

[humansbgone]

(I think tumblr might have eaten my attempt to ask this so ignore this one if it didn't) Glad you continued with Gregorsa's notes! I love the extra worldbuilding and real-life info they contain! Speaking of Gregorsa, would you say this episode contains a hint as to why he was so intense about insisting the communication gap between macrovolutes and humans CAN be bridged, or why he was so down when talking about how his stylized representation of himself might be 'dishonest'?

I'm glad Gregorsa's lectures are appreciated! That said, the notes themselves were never in any danger--I always intended to keep those!

Apart from that, I can say no more ;)

[humansbgone]

Gregorsa's comment that we might have already spotted a demivolute other than the cow makes me think that the human commander we saw was a demivolute. If that's the case, would her subordinates be aware of that, or would she be hiding it from them? If she isn't the demivolute that Gregorsa was talking about, then what is? Can plants be demivolutes? Would that mean that Tricularia -itself- is what he was talking about?

:)

[humansbgone]

Gregorsa's comment that both demivolute and non-demivolute cows exist is interesting to me. Are there many vertebrate species like that, where you can simultaneously find demivolute and non-demivolute forms? Or are cows a rare exception? Do humans still keep non-demivolute cows? Or is that considered too dangerous (I remember Sophodra saying that macrovolutes could have protocule progenitors; if the same applies to demivolutes, then raising cows could be... risky).

Yes, both non-demivolute and demivolute populations exist of many animals (though usually in different parts of Tricularia)!

That said--no, humans do not keep non-demivolute cows, for exactly the reason you figured! Only non-avian reptiles can be reliably kept as domestic animals. They get larger, but not untenably so, and that's the extent of the changes.

[humansbgone]

At first when Sophodra refers to the humans she catches as female I thought it was her own bias generalizing an unidentified animal as female, the same way a lot of people in our world generalize them as male until they're properly identified, but then it was revealed that all the members of the scouting party she caught WERE female. Is there any particular reason for that? Are the humans just emulating macrovolute society (whether purposefully or not), or is there some practical reason for it?

The majority of the human population is female, and the hivers that Sophodra fights are entirely females. Exactly the reason for the population skew will be revealed later!

That said, macrovolutes *do* consider things to be female by default--but this was a case of Sophodra knowing her stuff!