Shadow Play, Chapter 11

Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Chapter 5 - Chapter 6 - Chapter 7
Chapter 8 - Chapter 9 - Chapter 10 - Chapter 11

The return to Defenders HQ thankfully passed without incident. The gum-covered Zafara Rogue got plenty of odd looks from passersby, but considering their party also included a Werelupe and a glowy Halloween Kyrii battlemage, Terra was more than used to odd looks by now. The Nimmo receptionist in the Defenders’ lobby also did a double-take at their motley group, but Terra also figured double-takes were par for the course with her family.

The receptionist informed them that Judge Hog had already left to retrieve his artefact of choice, but Aisheena was currently holding down the fort in his place, so they went to talk to the white Aisha Defender.

Terra had never been in Aisheena’s office, and it looked markedly different from Judge Hog’s office, with plush faerie furniture and paintings on the walls of relaxing landscapes. It was funny, Terra thought, how one’s workspace said a lot about them.

The Aisha looked up from the book she was studying, and lifted an eyebrow at the Zafara Rogue’s strange condition. “Well, good morning,” Aisheena said. “You’re the Zafara Rogue, aren’t you.”

The Zafara nodded with a bit of a scowl. “They told me you could help me,” she said, squaring her shoulders. “I’m trying to—to make things better.”

 

 What if Copycat isn't actually copying everything the player character (presumably) says? What if she's just talking to herself? People in the Pokémon universe are a little unhinged like that.

I had been wanting to try this for a long time, and finally got around to it the other day: designing amigurumi Digimon! A lot of the In-Training level Digimon are natural fits for amigurumi because they're generally round and squishy and limbless (or have minimal limbs). I started with one of the OGs, Koromon, and it was a lot of fun. This is kind of a proof-of-concept piece, so it's not perfect (the mouth embroidery in particular could have been better, and I think next time I'll use a thinner strand of yarn for the mouth), but honestly I think he turned out pretty cute for a first try! I'm so addicted to amigurumi now. It's a great productive hobby for when I need a break from staring at screens.

 

 You stand there handing out your company's proprietary software to anyone who walks by, and then wonder why stuff like Porygon-Z happens.

I kept coming up with ridiculous JS Bach slogans, and I just liked all four of these so much that I put them all on Redbubble! I kinda treat classical composers like rock stars.

 Why did Team Rocket take over Silph Co. back in Gen I, anyway? Just for the money? Or a secret love of collectibles?

 Definitely using this one to vent my frustrations about how the Jurassic Park/World franchise has become the standard (and inaccurate) image of dinosaurs for pop culture. And then to make matters worse, the Jurassic World media introduced heavily genetically modified hybrid dinosaurs with superpowers, which only further served to confuse people, and now you have kids thinking Indominus rex really existed because they weren't paying attention to the "we did some serious gene splicing" conversation in the film, and the whole thing is just a mess.

I'm just not on board with using real animals as fodder for monster movies. It muddles people's perceptions of the facts and real science, and then you have entire generations growing up completely misinformed about reality. Real dinosaurs and other prehistoric creatures were already amazing, beautiful animals that deserve to be appreciated and studied for what they were, not simply used as a jumping-off point for over-the-top, difficult-to-believe Hollywood creatures.

The ever-quotable Carl Sagan couldn't have put it better: "I find science so much more fascinating than science fiction. It also has the advantage of being true."