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At long last, it's here! Sorry this took so long, I had to do a lot of research for it to make sure I got everything right. Thanks to LemonyEggnog for the concrit on Part II, by the way!

I promise there won't be nearly as long of a wait before the next one, since I've had that planned out first ;)

Part III (NSFW)


((Neshomeh, I am sorry. Just not sorry enough to not write this awful thing :-D))

Since bus prices from where I am to London are surprisingly cheap, it looks like I'll be there as well!
~Ak

Everyone in the prequels was really bad at seeing what was right in front of their faces. The first Star Wars movie my dad ever saw was Phantom Menace and within Palpatine's first sixty seconds of screen time he turned to me and said, "That's the bad guy, isn't it?"

I'll be the first to admit that Anakin is a total idiot. But he's my total idiot. Yeah there were problems with the writing and the character arc and at times the acting, but the end result was still a good thing.

I was going to do specialist maths, but that got canned so I'm doing Maths Methods:

I know you guys were looking forward to it, and I have made zero progress. Now with school and summer classes to look forward to in the future, I still want to do it but I have absolutely no idea when I could. And I am so sorry.

It's National Voter Registration Day apparently.

I didn't think of that, to be honest. Although you'd think Roland would've mentioned it in the "present." Perhaps he wanted his ka-tet to draw their own conclusions.

But that was because I was a Star Wars edgelord.

Also, to Snowy, I originally pronounced it "hween-sore-on", but then a text-to-speech machine pronounced it "whine-sore-on" and I adopted that unintentionally.

-Twistey

*fights the urge to pretend I spaced out and thought you were a newbie in order to give you a virtual present because I love giving virtual presents to people*

-Twistey

Thyme 2 Dye

I hope you used the standard summoning ritual involving chocolate. {= P

My e-mail should be visible in my username above. Fair warning: I am the worst beta because I procrastinate and take forever to get things done. I can also be a little persnickety. But I am the best beta because I'm not afeared of NSFW or continua I don't know, and I will catch the majority of any SPaG errors that may be present. {= )

~Neshomeh

I went looking through Seerowpedia a bit last night, and it seems Aldrea "married" Dak Hamee, too. Sex at Dawn has a whole discussion about anthropologists confusingly using the word "marriage" to describe a whole host of arrangements that may or may not actually resemble the Western concept of "til death do us part" and all that, so I wonder about this. I mean, we're talking about a bunch of aliens. What if it doesn't mean what we think it does?

I actually do think it probably means exactly what we think it does, though, both due to how relationships are presented in-universe and the fact that it's probably just how the authors see the world and it might not occur to them to introduce that much complication to matters that don't much pertain to the overall plot of a YA series. Also, I recalled that the Ellimist meddled with Andalite evolution, and might well have modeled them after himself.

I was thinking, any herd animal I can think of tends to be a polygynous harem, with a top male holding a territory and several females. Either that or the females and juveniles hang together and males roam around by themselves or in small groups. Dolphins are like that, and being somewhat social, cooperative, highly intelligent but pre-linguistic (as far as we can determine), they might be a decent model for early Andalites. Dolphins are FAR from monogamous, though, and highly sexual. (One criticism I have of the book is that the authors don't seem to know this, so miss out on describing another mammal apart from the great apes that behaves this way.)

So, my money's on the Ellimist tinkering with their social evolution and nudging them down the path of strict monogamy, which seems to be how the Ketrans did things. At one point the Ellimist married (there's that word again) one of the other survivors from his world, right?

Ooh, interesting point from my wiki-walk, though: There is a confirmed gay Andalite couple, Gafinilan and Mertil from book 40, "The Other." It's Word of God (or co-god?), not in the text, but still, that puts an interesting twist on things. I haven't read that book, and I don't know if they were meant to be a couple before getting stuck on Earth together, but I wonder if Mertil losing his tail-blade—in essence being emasculated, being in the position of a female who can't defend herself as well with her small blade—has anything to do with it.

I quail somewhat to think of how Andalite society, as terribly rigid as it is, might treat homosexual individuals. Either there's a place demarcated for them in the structure of things, or as with the vecols, it's just bad news. {= (

~Neshomeh

I'm actually not sure whether Blue & Immy can have kids - Arthur Telton originally (and so far only) appears in an alternate timeline, in which they were still alive. But I like him, so I'm giving him a potential way in.

I'm glad you enjoyed the story; I put a lot of work into it, so it's good to know it paid off. :)

hS

Since you're here—not to nag, but did you get my e-mail a couple weeks ago? I sent it to h heath one nine nine two, at the hot address. Was that the right one?

And... yes, I rather think it is. {= 3

~Neshomeh

Although while present-day Roland would definitely make the connection, I'm not sure the teenage Roland during the skin-man mission would have realized? Up to that point, the Man in Black was posing as an adviser to Steven, and beyond having an affair with Gabrielle, I don't think he had done anything to reveal himself as an ageless sorcerer, at least not to Roland.

—doctorlit, splitting hairs

s. At least, by my reading.

After the Ellimist has turned himself into an Andalite and married a female:

Tree came to me and made the hand-words for "child."

Which I read as Tree wanting to have a baby, so she just kind of . . . walks up and asks for one? Sort of feels like it supports your heat cycle idea, too, though it's not confirmation.

We do get confirmation of Andalites being prey animals. Later that same scene:

"Then why have another child? If not the disease, then the monsters, or a famine. Why have another child?"

"Disease take one," Tree admitted. Then, with growing defiance, "Monster take one. Famine take one. More children, some live."

I also found a description for one of those unnamed predators:

It walked on six legs, each as thick as a tree trunk, a knuckling walk. It had a low-slung head that swung from side as it walked. The beast was armored with clunky, leatherish plates all down its back.

[ . . . ]

Then the beast began to move and I reciprocated their emotion. I would never have believed something so big could move so fast.

[ . . . ]

The first of my "brothers" reached the monster. The beast killed two effortlessly. It paused to eat, to rip the two martyrs apart and swallow them, all but ignoring the brave stabs of their fellows.

Sorry, but I keep finding more relevant quotes here. When the Ellimist first reaches the surface of the Andalite world, and the locals fail to recognize him:

Their reaction to me was instantaneous. They charged me at top speed, surrounded me, and twisted around awkwardly to aim their pointed tail blades at me.

No indication is given of the sexes of those specific Andalites, but at least it shows they were willing to use their blades on other Andalites. I'd say fighting over territory is at least in the cards, if not fighting for mating rights.

—doctorlit has hopefully been a little helpful

1) Haye neh Sauron.
2) Tall yet stocky male, late teens. Browm hair cut fairly short, brown eyes with grayish rims around the irises. Wears glasses with rectangular lenses. Favors cargo pants, Large brown birthmark about two or so inches across just above left knee. Stubble on face. Large-ish hands.
3) THE CHICKENQUISITON HAS BEEN NOTIFIED OF YOUR HERESY.

Is "poke holes" really the phrasing you wanna use here?

In general, thanks for all you've done for the PPC, both when it comes to the community and to the universe!

I didn't read this story super-thoroughly. That being said, I liked i. The bit with the opinion from Legal near the beginning and the whole Backup Board business stuck out as particularly PPC-like things, along with the ghosts (who apparently can have kids, who knew?).

I wasn't expecting this to all be a side effect of timeline shenanigans. It was a neat twist.

Writing wise, I'm liking that, even though this story was really dialogue-heavy, it didn't collapse into a bunch of people standing still and talking. I'll also say that the minimal setting info we get from the chapter titles gives a good enough sense of where things are taking place (or at least enough to let me form mental images).

- Tomash, who's somehow clawed his way out from under a pile of things that needed doing

is what you're saying? ;)

I kid, I kid! Dai Stiho, Helsinki!