(no subject)

[ofdrumsthesound]

'Normal' people can be painfully insensitive.

Comments

[bakery_owner]

I'm sure it's nothing intentional on their part.

[ofdrumsthesound]

*Is this guy naive or what?* It can be. Usually is, I'd say.

[bakery_owner]

Is that right?

[Hm.]

It sounds as if you've had a rough time, then.

[ofdrumsthesound]

You have no idea.

[bakery_owner]

I'd be willing to listen if you'd like to share.

[ofdrumsthesound]

You do not want to hear about my life. It tends to make people run away screaming.

[bakery_owner]

....

[Well, that's certainly not the response Tachibana was expecting.]

Run away screaming...?

[ofdrumsthesound]

I'm a demented alien would-be overlord. I've been undergoing constant psychic torture since I was eight.

Between the genocides, the cannibalism, the random lunatic ranting and raving, the sadistic torments, the curling up in a corner and weeping, the blowing things up and the taking over the world, my life has been a horror story like you can't imagine. *He laughs.* Sometimes I'm even the victim!

1/2

[bakery_owner]

......

2/2

[bakery_owner]

[...this is up there with the guy claiming to be a car.]

...what?!

[No, wait, this has to be a joke.]

Keywords LOL

[ofdrumsthesound]

See what I mean?

[bakery_owner]

...................

[There is so much Tachibana would like to say, but he just can't formulate an appropriate response. Seriously, who is this guy?!]

[ofdrumsthesound]

*Weren't you listening?*

What?

[bakery_owner]

[Sigh.]

It seems this is more complicated than I realized.

[ofdrumsthesound]

Well yes, reality tends to be like that.

[reality_hopping_genius]

Tell me about it.

[ofdrumsthesound]

I'm thinking of dropping this one guy on Hender's Planet . . .

[reality_hopping_genius]

What's Hender's Planet?

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Fragment Don't get lost, now :D

[ofdrumsthesound]

Oh, just your basic death world. *He grins.* Take one animal from Hender's Planet, drop it on a civilization you don't like and say goodbye.

Drop a person on the planet and they don't have time to scream.

So sorry I'm late on this. RL is a hell of a drug.

[reality_hopping_genius]

One of those 'everything eats everything else' planets? I've only seen one in my time.

It's okay.

[ofdrumsthesound]

Yeah, like that. The grass secretes acid, the trees are covered in tentacles and snapping jaws, the vines are nooses and that's just the plants.

The natives are stronger than an elephant, eagle-eyed and have color-changing fur that mimics the background better than an LED screen, and every single one of them fled the planet within a week of first contact.

[reality_hopping_genius]

What I wouldn't give for a small collection of that planet's fossil record.

[ofdrumsthesound]

I could do a few sketches, if you'd like?

[reality_hopping_genius]

That would be amazing, Master.

http://www.warrenfahy.com/page_gallery_guide_ant.html :D

[ofdrumsthesound]

Alright. *He takes paper and a pen from his pocket and starts to draw.*

Disc-ant. One of the really nasty ones; no bigger than your hand at the most, but the fucking thing is fractal. Its covered in babies which are covered in babies which are--well, you get the idea. And all of them eat everything, and all of them are mean.

[reality_hopping_genius]

I love it! Simply incredible. It's like some kind of parallel arthropod chain of evolution, similar in breeding structure to aphids and in lifestyle to some more voracious species of ant.

Does the 'ant' in its name reflect a group effort, like a hive, or is it a more solitary hunter?

[ofdrumsthesound]

Each one is a colony, pretty much. When it's in danger it launches all the young ones, which do the same . . . it can make its food appear to melt, all the nanoants getting into the wound.

I'm not sure if that exactly counts as a group effort, since they don't really care about each other much, but the effects are the same.

[reality_hopping_genius]

In such a vicious ecosystem, I can't imagine lifeforms get too big. I mean, nothing quite on par, perhaps, with Earth's Tyrannosaurus or even an Arachnid warrior-drone. Most life would probably get not much bigger than, say, mid-sized dogs.

Except maybe apex predators, were there any, but those would likely have to be solitary wait-and-snatch predators, as an apex predator in an ecosystem of this voraciousness and level of activity would be all too likely to wipe out most of the ecological balance.

[ofdrumsthesound]

There are a few creatures that are large, but everything there is hermaphrodite and fast-maturing. Some people think it may be almost extinction-proof--how do you wipe out a creature like the disc-ant, exactly?

[reality_hopping_genius]

I've seen a creature, though not from a deathworld, with a possible explanation: Its closest Earth parallel was a sea cucumber, porous and breathing, eating, defecating, through all of these. Its defense mechanism was also its system for feeding: It was almost constantly surrounded by a personal cloud of its own digestive enzymes.

[ofdrumsthesound]

Of course, enzymes can't become a whole new sea cucumber if it isn't sterilized.

That would be an interesting battle, though. Not sure who would win, honestly--but I'd still put my money on the disc-ant. The fuckers can jump, the enzymes would have to work before the swarm killed it.

[reality_hopping_genius]

I'd have to agree. Ultimately, though, I wonder if it wouldn't be a Pyrrhic victory for the disc-ant. By the time it finished eating the cucumber, the enzymes would have done their work as well.

[ofdrumsthesound]

The problem is, only one or two nanoants have to survive. And there are a couple million of them per macroant.

[reality_hopping_genius]

And then the life cycle begins all over again: that ... is brilliant, is what it is.

I'll admit, a creature like that could easily screw over any number of ecologies.

[ofdrumsthesound]

Yeah. Disc-ants are likely the most potentially destructive creatures on Hender's Planet because of that. Mind you, a lot of the other creatures there are pretty bad as well.

They're useful when you want to completely reset evolution somewhere, though.

[reality_hopping_genius]

Depends on the world. There are some weird ones that a disc-ant might have trouble damaging just for how nonsensical it can be.

I never thought I'd actually see worlds that are near-exact duplicates of what you'd expect out of a D&D campaign, but there you are. Dragons and ghosts and monsters that can rust near any metal with a touch of their antennae.

[ofdrumsthesound]

I'm sure every story is real somewhere. In infinite space all things have happened.

Just avoid Lovecraft, House of Leaves and anything involving lots of spiders and you'll be fine.

[reality_hopping_genius]

That sounds like pretty sound advice.

[ofdrumsthesound]

Why thank you.

Of course, a lot of people would tell you to avoid me, so if you ever meet Wilbur Whateley or Shelob you'll at least have the advantage of having spoken to monster before.

[reality_hopping_genius]

Does an Arachnid brainbug count there?

[ofdrumsthesound]

I think so, yes. Why?

[reality_hopping_genius]

I've had to deal with one. A little hard to communicate, since I'm a Resistant, but at the same time, it really wasn't much for conversation.

[ofdrumsthesound]

Just wanted to kill you?

[reality_hopping_genius]

More like 'suck my brains out through my cranium', but the end result is the same.

[ofdrumsthesound]

Unfortunately. I haven't had well-cooked brain in ages . . .

*He shakes himself.* Sorry. My automatic response to hearing about man-eating monsters is to start wanting to join in.

[reality_hopping_genius]

I-- I don't blame you, actually.

If 'feeding frenzy' applied to any kind of creature in the multiverse, the Arachnids would definitely be one of the top collectors of the description.

[ofdrumsthesound]

Them and me.

[reality_hopping_genius]

Well, yeah.

[ofdrumsthesound]

And, you know, sharks and stuff. *He grins.* But mostly me.