This Is Such A Neat Piece! I'd Probably Actually Buy This To Put It Up In My Place If I Had The Money.

Hooray! It's always a blast to discover more jurassic species! And this one's a crocodile ancestor!

Jurassic-Period Crocodile Ancestor Unearthed in Chile

http://www.sci-news.com/paleontology/burkesuchus-mallingrandensis-09929.html

Johnny Jhonny in: A Christmas Calamity

A STORY/IT’S DONE!/ FOR @pjmaxsson ! Happy holidays from your @pnatsecretsanta, and apologies that this was sent out so late! (also as a PS, PJ gets his own gift in an epilogue, which will be coming soon!)

Johnny Jhonny In: A Christmas Calamity

“ARGH!”

Johnny Jhonny kicked one of the small snow piles haphazardly placed along the sidewalk. The holiday season, as with most things in Mayview, had been bizarre so far, with a mild snowstorm being followed by a mild warm front. Only a thin layer of snow remained, save for the large dirty piles left by the snowplows.

“Out of anyone I coulda gotten, I had ta’ get Isabel Guerra? That chick’s impossible to get information on!”

“Well if it’s any consolation, she probably won’t murder you if you get it messed up. Pretty sure Lisa knows I got Violet ‘cause she’s been giving me that creepy smile for the past three days. Plus, I don’t think RJ even got someone from our grade,” Ollie chimed in.

RJ nodded in agreement, their furrowed brow hidden by their hood.

“None of this would even be a PROBLEM if Mr. Garcia had handed out these assignments earlier!” Stephen cried out, waving his hands in an exaggerated motion. “THREE DAYS to deliver a Secret Santa present?! We’re gonna have to do our investigations separately!”

              The group, sans RJ, groaned at that. Gift giving for them was nothing to be taken lightly; each member of Johnny’s Gang would meticulously search for, or more often create, something for their target that would have some kind of personal connection for them, a tactic that extended to any poor fool that they got saddled with for a Secret Santa. This, of course, could take a bit of time to gather enough information to make such a gift, which the boys (and RJ) preferred doing together. That plan was now ruined thanks to Mr. Garcia sleeping through the day he was supposed to hand the slips out, on top of his continued forgetting.

              There was a nudge on Johnny’s arm, and he swerved to see where RJ was pointing. At the base of the hill they were slowly traversing down was his target, a maroon sweater barely peeking out under a stone grey jacket, mahogany hair lightly nestled at the shoulders. There’s no way Guerra wouldn’t suspect an ambush if the four of them went down, a thought Johnny saw reflected in his compadres’ eyes.

              “Go get ‘em, slugger!” whispered Stephen with a shove that was anything but soft, sending Johnny stumbling nearly a quarter of the way down the slope before he caught his footing. Halfway down the hill, Johnny stopped and gave a quick glance at his pals, who gave waves of encouragement and thumbs up as a response.

---

About three feet in, Johnny was able to gather one bit of information on Isabel Guerra:

She had really weird ideas for recreational activities.

After a few close calls, he had managed to tail her into a weird-looking cave mound. The damp walls seemed to eat up any light, as Johnny had soon found it hard to see even a foot in front of him, and the soft ground obscured any sounds he could have used to follow her. The paths were wide (he surmised that Ollie could easily walk beside him) and winding ever downward, and the bully soon realized that there were multiple sprawling paths. Johnny silently cursed himself for not charging his phone the day before. At least there would have been a small light source if he had.

The small, uneven muttering up ahead caught his attention.

“Oh geez. Oh man. D-did I go the right way? How are there so many paths? What if Mr. Max is hurt? What if that thing comes back? Ohhh…”

Slowly, Johnny crept up to the voice, hearing it fret over many things. He squinched up his eyes, trying to think. This definitely wasn’t Isabel-her voice could command the room, confidence would ooze from every sound she made.

“I can’t stay here worrying about this! Mr. Max needs me! But…”

“Who the heck’re you?”

              “WAAAUGH!”

Johnny could just barely make out the hazy shape of a boy about his age in front of him, quaking intensely. He wouldn’t have enough time to ruffle this one up, he figured. Got too far away from Guerra already. He’d have to make this quick in order to catch up to her and hopefully hear her let something slip.

“A’ight fella, this is the way it’s gonna work here. I’m feeling pretty generous t’day. Gotta make sure I get the deets on somebody real fast n’ stuff. I’m not even gonna stop ta’ beat ya’ up right now, my mood’s that good. Just tell me where the Guerra chick went.”

“Uhhh…I…don’t know who…that is..?” came the hasty reply.

“Er.. Isabel Guerra? Brown eyes, long brown hair, gray jacket? ”

“…Oh. OH!” The boy seemed to perk up a little upon hearing that. “That’s the scary girl’s name? The one from that weird dodgeball game, right?”

“Hitball, yeah, she was t’ other captain. Besides me.”

“O-oh, okay. I, uh, wasn’t paying too much attention to the game…mostly just watching Max. Ah! Are you the guy Max blocked that ball for?”

That one stung a little. If there was anything that made Johnny Jhonny uncomfortable, it’s someone taking a punishment that should’ve rightfully been his.

“Yeah…that’s me,” he said, the agitation creeping into his voice. “You gonna tell me where the girl went now, or are ya gonna stand here and waste my freakin’ time?”

“Well…I dunno where…Isabel, right? Went exactly…but if she’s in here, that means she’s going to help Max too! Which is good, because this place kinda scares me..”

Great. This kid wasn’t any help at all, Johnny thought to himself as he began to storm off. Well, as best as he could storm in this place, anyway, as the ground muffled all his footsteps.

“Uh, mister sir, you’re heading into a wall,” the boy provided helpfully right as Johnny smashed his face into a bed of dirt. “Are you able to see in here? Because it looks like you’re squinting pretty hard…”

“Oh, so you can see where yer’ goin’ in this pitch black mess?”

“A-a little, mister sir. This place has a lot of weird turns and forks and dead ends. If you can’t tell where you’re going, you could get pretty lost.”

Johnny suddenly had an idea.

“Right then, it’s settled! I can’t see a foot in fronta’ me, and yer’ too scared to fight…whatever it is you came in here fer’, so you get ta’ do the lookin’ and I’ll do the fightin’! I’ll let ya’ pay me back for it later.”

“Uh…ah…oh…kay”, came the uneasy reply. “There’s a path to your left. It’s straight for a while after that, from what I can see.”

And with that, the two set off.

---

Johnny couldn’t tell how long he’d been walking in silence for. At least with the Ed ambush a few days prior, he’d been able to gauge some method of progress by seeing just where Ed was and what he was up to. But here there wasn’t anything to see ahead of him. He could barely hear his own footsteps on the ground if he paid enough attention, but he couldn’t hear the other kid’s at all, even though with a glance he could see the kid steadily at his side.

He wasn’t scared, of course. It was just a dark silent cave, that’s all. Nothing that pathetic could scare Johnny Jhonny.

He was, admittedly, just a little creeped out. He needed something to keep his mind off of this. Besides Guerra, of course. No sense chasing Guerra with some hyped up senses that’d give him away.

“So what’s your deal, anyway? If yer’ so scared of everything, whatcha even come to a spooky cave for?” he asked.

The sad little laugh’s proximity made him jump.

“I was trying to go around with Max a little bit, to see the town again. I thought maybe I could become a little braver, maybe even help in a fight...but then a big spirit came up and grabbed him! I followed it here, but then Max dropped his bat trying to get out of its arms, and I rushed in to help and give it back to him. He can’t fight real good without it… but this is a big cave, and I can’t get the bat to him without going through it, and it’s dark and I got scared…”

Johnny stared at the kid with only the slightest expression of disbelief. “You wanna learn how to fight?”               “I have to be able to help out when he gets attacked! So I can have his back! Because that’s what friends do!”

There was a sense of conviction in the kid’s voice that wasn’t there before. A conviction immediately lost when the floor shook and a deep rumble emanated from below, if the higher pitched wailing that came from his position was anything to go by.

Once the rumbling stopped and Johnny confirmed that he could not beat the earthquake into submission, he turned and gently slapped his hand over the general area of his partner’s head. Although he missed his mouth entirely, it still worked wonders in stopping the kid’s terrified babbling.

“Tell ya what, ya picked a good day ta run into me. I’ll whip ya up into ship-shop shape so you can wallop all yer problems while I’m out nerd hunting. A’course, you’ll have to pay me back with interest…”, he said, cracking his knuckles for effect, but secretly impressed that the kid was trying to take initiative.

He was not expecting a shaky, uncertain “thank you” as a response, but it filled him with a weird sense of pride, and soon an exchange of stories began.

----

To the timid kid’s credit, he had kept his end of the bargain.

Johnny soon realized the kid was a good eavesdropper, since he mentioned that he only knew the girl for a few days. He would’ve quicker taken Isabel to be a dog person afraid of spiders than the other way around. Apparently she was close to her spider too, the one that she’d lost recently. Called it a friend. Johnny could relate; the loss of his boxer four years ago still hurt to think about somewhat. She was also Max’s friend, so of course she’d be into the freaky flipping and jumping around he did constantly. Between her and that spiky nerd dude, freaky movements seemed to be something of a requirement for being that kid’s buddy. He made a mental note to himself to practice some moves with his pals later to show him up.

Some of the facts were a bit harder to make sense of. According to him, she had come with some “scary guy with glasses” to help sort out a…evil whale frog the other day? Riding a paper horse? With the kid’s luck he probably found that weirdo history teacher that’s always wearing shades, but with the kid’s track record of jumping at the smacking sounds of Johnny’s hands, he could’ve been scared of pretty much anyone.

And if what the kid was saying was true, he had somehow managed to punch a teacher in the face for “being evil”. Not a bad start to a fighting career, even if he said that he ran and hid behind Max immediately after.

On his own side, Johnny had launched into relaying many of his and his gang’s bouts over the years, placing emphasis on each blow, duck and dodge. What started out as giving advice on which attacks are what, when people are giving them and how to take/sidestep them quickly derailed into making as great a story as possible. Johnny was just too used to framing these stories for his pals. His partner didn’t seem to mind it too much, though, and every hushed “wow” and question of what happened next only served to hype him up further. He told of turf wars and stakeouts, of the gang catching up to a group of cyclists that had bought the last of the candy that RJ had been looking forward to all week, even his battle with Ed and the Great Starch Hunt.

“’An then he gave us stars from his own pocket for beatin’ him, and Ed took off for greater quarry. Gotta meet up with him later to get RJ’s stuff back…an’ mine too, come ta think of it. Then we got thrown inta’ detention.”

“Wow, mister sir, you sure do get into a lot of adventures.”

“Whoa whoa, knock it off with the ‘mister sir’ crap, yer makin’ me feel old.”

“I don’t think you’ve told me your name though.”

“Wha-you don’t know my name? After everything I just told you?”

“S-sorry…”

“The name’s Johnny. Johnny Jhonny. Forget it and I whack ya.”

“Ah, okay mister Johnny.”

There was a small back and forth about not using “mister” and the kid’s inability to get it through his head, followed by a weird silence, until a small question piped up from the compatriot:

“So you were always good at fighting the bad guys and…other guys, huh? I hope I can be that fearless someday.”

Johnny paused. The image of an angry Jeff from a few days before surfaced in his head, mocking him for protecting his buddies and promising a permanent scar. He remembered how that ball came sailing towards his pals and how much it’d hurt them if he moved. How people kept taking shots for him that weren’t meant for them: Dimitri, Max…

…and how readily RJ and Ollie were to take them, too.

“…That ain’t it. Listen, it’s not about never bein’ scared. That Hitball game where everythin’ went nuts? I acted all brave to calm down my buds, but…I was shakin’ inside. But I took that fear and threw it right back at that little punk. You just gotta take all that terror that’s buildin’ in your chest and put it in your fists instead. Pick up all that fear those jerks put in ya and make ‘em take it back tenfold.”

“How do you do that, Johnny sir?”

The “sir” wasn’t much better, but Johnny brushed it aside for now. “Well, you know how you keep screamin’ whenever somethin’ spooks ya? Make it louder. Make it a war cry! Bellow and yell in their face and make em’ pay for makin’ that sound come outta’ your mouth! And when you think maybe you should book it, or get worried that you can’t take the fight, you think of how your friends would be in the same spot as you, and how they’d get hurt instead, and then you beat up that foe for daring to put that image in your head!”

There was a pause before he spoke again with as much mentorly conviction as he could muster.

“Ya’ don’t let those punks hurt your friends. Ya gotta stand by your pals, fight by their side, so they don’t take blows that ain’t their due.”

“Because that’s what friends do.”

“Exactly.”

A few seconds passed without any words. Johnny then piped up again.

“Y’know, I don’t think you ever told me your name neither.”

“Oh. Uhm..it’s PJ. I’m PJ.”

Johnny couldn’t really see the kid’s face at all, but he could feel the smile from where he was standing. Or maybe that was just the small smile creeping up on his own face. He wasn’t sure, but the area felt calmer, the silence almost welcoming.

That didn’t last.

Another rumble cut through the air, and the quakes nearly threw the bully to the ground. Then another noise, just loud enough for Johnny to make out, bellowed from below.

“KKKKKKKREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!”

“That’s the spirit that got mister Max! It’s close!” shouted PJ before a third rumble sounded. Johnny felt loose soil fall into his hair and vigorously ran his hands through his ‘do. He wasn’t exactly sure what a “spirit” meant, or what could’ve possibly made that noise, but it wasn’t going to stop him from following Guerra. He charged ahead.

Straight into a wall of dirt.

“Ahh! The path is blocked off! It must have touched the soil again!”

“Wha..?” came the muffled reply.

“The spirit can touch things! It moved the soil around earlier when I was making my way in!”

Johnny felt hands on his shoulders for a brief moment before he was catapulted backwards. His hands quickly found soft fabric and the two sped away back up the hallway, swerving and curving to avoid pieces of the ceiling falling down around them. The tremors intensified, and Johnny swung back, bracing himself to punch an enemy he couldn’t see.

KLANG!!

It took a minute for his ears to stop screaming at him, but the vibrations underneath him seemed to halt. His foot slipped for half a second over a pit that he didn’t think was there before. As the ringing subsided, his head pieced together what that noise could have been.

“Hehey, that sounded like a solid hit! Looks like ya got more punch than ya thought, lil slugger!”

“Uh…I didn’t actually swing at it…it came up from underneath me and hit the bat with its face…”

“A solid hold then. You held the bat steady while it came at ya.”

“I was more frozen in fear…”

“Dude, take the compliment before I shove it down your throat hole.”

“OK, Johnny sir.”

“NO, it’s just—you don’t have ta—ah, forget it.”

Johnny turned back and felt around the edges of the hole with his shoe. Whatever came up from the ground was huge, as it took him a while to find a part of the soft earth that wasn’t sloping into the pit. He had half a mind to try throwing something in it to hear how deep it went, but the way the ground was, he wouldn’t be able to hear how far something went anyway.

With no other options, the two started backtracking farther up the cave.

---

“Hey, come ta think of it…PJ, are you in your pajamas?”

“Oh. Yeah, I guess so.”

“Why’d you come down here in your pajamas when it’s this cold out? You lookin’ to catch a flu or something?”

“I can’t really…touch anything unless it’s possessed. …or a spirit… …or Max…or people with special powers.”

“Whaddya mean you can’t touch things? You’re holding Max’s bat. You just touched me like five minutes ago!”

“This is Max’s special weapon with special powers! I can touch it because it’s full of magic.”

“Yeah, well I ain’t no freaky jumpin’ wizard with wizard tools, and ya touched me, so there. What the heck are you talking about with ‘spirits’ anyway? You saying this cave is full of ghosts or something?”

“I don’t think spirits are the same thing as ghosts… they’re weird. They can be really big, or small, and they all have powers, and they can have legs.”

“Ha! Now I know yer’ bluffin’! Stephen told me that ghosts look like super see-through people with a faint bluish tint on ‘em. Only the ones from other places don’t got feet.”

There was an awkward silence. Johnny couldn’t see the face of his partner beside him, but he could tell that the look on his face was one of confusion.

“…You’re new to this, aren’t you?”

Before Johnny could ask him what the heck that was supposed to mean, the rumbling returned. The large, soft chunks of dirt rained down on Johnny’s shoulders, and the ground beneath him quickly lost stability. Small hills of soil quickly piled up near his feet.

The place was caving in.

Johnny quickly found PJ’s arms (though there was little need, as his hands had already found Johnny’s wrists as soon as the rumbles had begun again) and booked it back up the path. He soon found it hard to block out the burning running up his side, or his lungs crying out for air, or the urge to remove all the dirt from his hair, but the twists and turns the path soon divulged helped distract him ever so slightly.

There was only one brief stop, when two other shadows crossed their path, one yanking the other forward in a similar manner. The long hair fluttering into the other shadow’s face was a dead giveaway for Guerra, but when Johnny tried to follow her, he ran into another wall. The place must be coming down fast if he was blocked off that quickly, he thought, and scrambled back as fast as he could to get the heck out of Chrysler.

After more twists and turns and dodges, a blinding light made its presence known. Johnny raced forward, the screaming in his sides unmatched by the crumbling walls becoming more evident from the light. As the exit loomed nearer and the snowy woods came into focus, he noticed the archway begin to buckle. He forced himself forward as fast as he could muster as the shiny white window to the outside became polluted with fallen sediment. He could feel the cool air on his skin and in his lungs, soothing his aching….well, everything. Out of the corner of his eye he could see the roof give entirely. He threw both of his arms forward in desperation, only dimly realizing that the grip he’d felt on his arm had vanished.

Suddenly he felt a hard shove from behind, and everything went white.

---

Johnny lied on the ground for a few seconds, allowing the small layer of snow to soothe his burning limbs. Each inhale brought both pain and relief. Slowly, he got back up to his feet, rubbing tiny patches of nearby snow underneath his pant legs to numb them ever so slightly and surveying the ground.

For the most part, the woods looked about the same as when he had entered, though he hadn’t been paying much attention to the ground at the time. Every track in the snow looked fresh, so it hadn’t snowed any further after he had entered the cave. A massive gouge in the frozen fluff confirmed that someone had been dragged into the mound, and he could see his shoeprints from his stalking mission, his wavy treads trailing just behind a far smoother and slightly smaller boot print.

He paused, then looked around the marks again. There were only two types of prints in the snow. Unless the kid had trod over the haphazard gouge, that was one type too few.

A small gleam caught his eye, and as he registered what was giving off such a glare, his eyes widened.

Lying three or four steps away from his position was an aluminum bat.

His head quickly snapped up to the cave’s entrance. The once great gaping maw that had lead down to the damp dark underneath had been entirely filled with moist brown soil.

There was no sign of life nearby.

He tried to scream for his cave companion, but his voice flickered in and out like a match refusing to light. Within seconds he was at the cave’s entrance, frantically clawing out bits of earth, searching for an opening, his trembling legs and pinwheeling arms providing the howling his throat could not produce.

As he opened his mouth to attempt crying out a fifth time, another scream filled the area for him.

“KKKKKKKREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!”

Johnny stumbled over onto his back, scrambling back into the snow while keeping eye contact with the thing. It was a gigantic mantis, about a few heads taller than a bus, with glowing white eyes the size of the globe Mr. Garcia had in his room. A viscous purple permeated its form and gleamed in the light as if it was made of Jello, and it shimmered like some form of mirage.

It noticed him instantly. Quicker than he’d ever expect a mantis to move, it raised a violet-tinged talon and swung its biological guillotine towards him. The light streaming through the bug caused Johnny’s eyes to water, and he braced himself.

Another familiar sound struck through the air, and his ears cried out in protest.

Johnny blinked away the tears to see another purple shape floating just a few feet in front of him. While the consistency still looked around the same, this one took the form of what looked like a twelve year old kid. A squint revealed what looked to be some form of shirt with a collar and wrist cuffs. There were no sign of legs; instead, the torso tapered off to a wispy serpentine tail. As Johnny stared at the apparition with a quivering mouth and eyes wide as saucers, the purple boy struggled to retain his position. The redhead mentally shook himself and peered beyond the kid; the mantis’s front claws had locked on to the bat the kid was holding and was attempting to push it out from underneath him.

“Aaah! The spirit’s too strong! I can’t keep this up!” the ghost exclaimed as the mantis lowered its head to his eye level, chattering large mandibles that would look less out of place on an ant. Its voice sounded familiar, Johnny thought, and oh sweet merciful Punch why did it sound so familiar, it couldn’t be--

“Please, mister Johnny! Heeelp!”

Johnny glanced from the purple boy to the purple bug and back a few times, his breathing becoming more erratic. It was then that his voice finally burst through in full force.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!”

For a brief second, the boy turned his head just a bit to look at Johnny. He had the same glowing eyes the bug did, as well as a small curl of hair sticking from his top. A look of panic and confusion soon snapped into realization, and the boy turned back and joined in the din.

“RAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!!”

It was barely audible above the combined noise of Johnny’s and the bug’s screams, but it was a valiant war cry nonetheless.

Through the wails, Johnny noticed the ghost slowly pushing back upwards against the mantis. The redheaded rogue shot himself to a sitting position and shoved the ghost forward, and the insidious insect buckled. The cold metal of the bat reunited with the behemoth’s face, and as it reeled backward, PJ raised his volume just a little bit, pitched his arms back, and swung the bat right into the creature’s eye. After another round of shrieking, the mantis waved one arm in front of them, and with a tepid “peh”, it retreated back into the earth.

Johnny stared at the spot the mantis had been a second ago in shock, only turning back to the ghost as it floated back in his direction.

“We did it! We beat the bad guy with …uh…violence! And friendship! And violent friendship!” PJ exclaimed as he neared Johnny, his grin somehow resting on the verge of just off-looking enough to be intimidating.

The bully tried to get up, or scramble away, or anything, but his body betrayed him. A fist slowly and haltingly tried to meet the ghost, but even that only made it halfway to its destination before stopping, the limb quaking uselessly in the air. The seconds passed as the ghost stared at the shaking fist until finally he clasped his hand around it.

Johnny’s voice failed him once again, only letting out a small squeak. He could only stare.

After a few minutes, the pajama-clad lad let out an “Oh!”

“I think that’s Isabel and Max over there!”, he exclaimed. Johnny barely managed to turn his head to see a large smoky red arrow a few yards away. “I have to hurry home too, I sort of didn’t tell Lefty where I was going again and he’s probably going to be real mad if he finds out I left.”

“Bye Johnny! Thanks for everythiiiing!” the ghost cried as he flew away.

Johnny just stared forward for a few minutes, his body completely spent. His head tried to come up with reasons for what just happened, but to no avail.

It took about ten minutes for his legs to finally work again, and as he made his way back home to complete his mission, the thoughts nagged at his mind.

He fought…something. With a ghost. He had Friendship Fused with a ghost.

He had befriended a ghost.

He shook his head back and forth to try to clear his head. He got what he needed out of the…ghost…and now it was time to put his newfound knowledge to good use.

Operation Season’s Beatings was a go.

---

All things considered, the Activity Club had a rather uneventful morning. Early patrol had consisted of dealing with one minor spirit with a compulsion to spread gift wrap everywhere, and Isaac’s small kicks of wind made quick work of the litter.

The lunch bell rang, and Isabel hurried to her locker to put away her books. The four of them had promised to eat lunch together outside and possibly share what they had gotten with the others. She thought about how Isaac would try to play it off as if he hadn’t looked at his gift yet when he had been keeping the plush ninja bunny really badly hidden in his jeans pocket all morning and grinned.

Upon kicking the locker door open, she was greeted with what looked like a shoebox with red Santa wrapping paper awkwardly balancing above her books. The spectral quickly glanced around to see if she was being watched and just barely caught a glimpse of red retreating. Shrugging it off, she grabbed her prize and headed to the schoolyard.

Unsurprisingly, Isaac was gushing about the bunny, his eyes reminding her of those “canine eye inflation disease” posters her grandfather had put up in her room. It was a well-crafted rabbit, from what she could see, and the black ninja garb combined with a small metal headband was a nice touch.

“Oh man Izzy, you’re gonna love what Max got,” Ed chirped as she plopped down beside the three.

“I’m serious, whoever told my Secret Santa about this is dead,” Max groaned as he revealed a model train set from his box. Isabel laughed heartily. “My dad is never going to stop running this thing! It’ll be puffing around upstairs until Halloween!”

“How long did it take Stephen to figure it out, by the way?” she asked Ed, who mirrored her devious grin.

“Two periods and I’m pretty sure Ollie was in on it.”

“Do I even want to know what awful fate you brought upon that fool?”

“Hey, when I told him the alien was right behind him, I wasn’t lying. And the Velcro stuck pretty well, all things considered.”

After hearing Isaac gush about the bunny some more (she recalled a scant few times where his voice reached that high of a pitch) and watching Ed reveal his gift of some art supplies and an Optimus Prime robot, the kids turned their attention to Isabel’s red box.

“The tag just says ‘Guerra!’ on it with no sender, so we’re off to a good start already”, Max said dryly as she carefully tore at the paper.

Isaac complained that he wanted to use that paper for later, so Isabel removed it carefully as to make it as whole as possible. Soon the box was bare, and the kids shot each other gleeful looks. Isabel ripped the box open.

Everyone paused. The boys shot uncertain glances at their friend, who stared at the contents with the blankest look on her face any of them had ever seen.

The box was filled with spiders of various sizes, colors and materials. Felt spiders with pom-pom bodies and googly eyes stared innocently upwards, a drawing of a spider eating a dog was taped to the side of the box, and spiders crafted with pebbles and glue stubbornly stuck to the bottom.

There were three origami spiders scattered throughout the box, each done in a different style. One of them had red eyes, saw-tooth fangs and an oddly misshapen head.

There was a handwritten note taped to the lid.

“Guerra,

I heard you lost your spider pal. Having somebody you love leave you stings something awful. So I made you a bunch of spiders that will never die on you ever. Plus to give you something to remember your friend by.

-

PS. They eat dogs”

“They didn’t even write their name on it?” Isaac murmured as Isabel picked up the red-eyed origami spider, slowly turning it in her palm.

“Izzy?” Ed asked gently as his friend traced an hourglass shape into the spider’s body. She stole a glance behind her of the red-haired idiot she’d seen earlier, propped up against a tree just within her line of sight, doing what looked like his best not to fall asleep. “You OK?”

She turned to her friends with a small smile, tucking the odd spider into the deep pocket of her jacket.

“Yeah. I’m just fine.”

Who? What? Clearing up Ambiguity in Your Story

Most of the confusing or ambiguous parts of your plot should get cleared up during the story- and scene-level edit of your book. But ambiguity sneaks into stories on the sentence-level, too.

In your sentence-level edit, you’ll want to check for ambiguous words, pronouns, language, and/or phrasing—anything that creates unintentional confusion for your reader.

Ambiguous Pronouns

Anytime you use it, its, this, that, he, she, him, her, his, hers, they, theirs, etc. make sure it’s crystal clear who or what you’re referring to.

Karen took the garlic, carrots, and lemon juice out of the fridge, but according to the recipe it wasn’t enough.

What wasn’t enough? The garlic? Carrots? Lemon juice? All three? To clarify, keep in mind that a pronoun refers to the last named person (for he, she, they) or object (for it, this, that). So in the sentence:

Karen and Diane unpacked her groceries into the fridge.

“Her” would refer to Diane, the last named female person. If those are Karen’s groceries, you’d need to write:

Karen and Diane unpacked Karen’s groceries into the fridge.

It may seem like a minor concern, but ambiguous pronouns can cause serious confusion for the reader, especially if you’re trying to show an important event.

Before: Lars threw the vase at the window, and it broke.

After: The vase broke when Lars threw it at the window.

In the first example, we can’t tell what broke. Was it the vase? The window? The revision, though not exactly poetic, is more clear.

Keep in mind that you can rewrite or reorganize whole passages to remove ambiguity, reworking the problem area until it adheres to your unique style and purposes. These are just examples to guide you, not instructions on how exactly to reword your sentences.

Common Ambiguous Pronouns:

• It • Its • This • That • Those • These • He • She • Him • Her • His • Hers • They • Theirs

Ambiguous Words

Unless the character is truly uncertain, or you want the reader to be uncertain what you’re referring to, avoid using ambiguous words like “something,” “somewhere,” “thing,” “stuff,” etc.

Before: There was something about him she despised.

After: She despised his beached-blonde hair, and his arrogance.

Be specific! If your character really doesn’t know what she hates about this person, “something” could work. But make sure you’re not being vague out of habit or laziness. 

Before: She picked up her stuff from the dry cleaners.

After: She picked up her suit from the dry cleaners.

“Suit” is a better choice here because it’s specific, concrete, and visualize-able. We can’t really get a mental picture of “stuff.”

Common Ambiguous Words:

• Thing • Something • Anything • Somewhere • Stuff • Nothing

When Ambiguity Works

Ambiguity has its place if your character is truly uncertain or if you want the reader to be uncertain.

In Jeanette Winterson’s Written on the Body, the main character is never named or gendered. This was an intentional choice by the writer, who wanted the reader to be unclear about the narrator’s gender and sexual identity.

Similarly, writers of horror, mystery, or magical realism who are trying to create a mysterious mood will use words like “might,” “could,” and “possibly” to intentionally invoke ambiguity:

The fog drifted through the trees, almost corporeal in its movements. Could it be ghost? An apparition?

In this dream sequence from Little Kingdoms, Steven Millhauser uses ambiguous language to emphasize the main character’s uncanny experience:

“You see,” he said to Max, who for some reason had climbed the desk and then onto the top of the door frame, where he sat crouched like a gnome as dark wings grew from his shoulders; and opening his eyes Franklin could not understand the bright dawn light pouring through the window in his bedroom, while somewhere far away a cup was rattling on a dish.  

When used intentionally, ambiguity can enhance mood, raise questions, and contribute to suspense. Just make sure you’re doing it on purpose!

#crocodiles #science #cool stuff! #some crocs will totally still eat fruit #it’s rather fun to see them chomp down on a mango

Ancient crocodiles may have preferred chomping plants, not meat

Fossil teeth of ancient crocodilians suggest that some ate plants and that such green diets evolved in crocs at least three times more than 60 million years ago.

Some extinct crocs may have been salad eaters.

Studies of fossil teeth suggest some ancient kin of modern crocodiles ate plants. These ancient plant-eating crocs evolved at least three times during the Mesozoic Era. This era stretched from about 252 million to 66 million years ago. Researchers reported their findings June 27, 2019 in Current Biology.

Today’s crocodiles eat mostly meat. Their simple, cone-shaped teeth are typical of meat eaters. Those teeth were different in certain of their ancient relatives. There was “tremendous diversity [in tooth shape] that we don’t see today,” says Keegan Melstrom. This paleontologist is a coauthor on the study. He works at the University of Utah and Natural History Museum of Utah. Both are in Salt Lake City.

i've been writing a book and the feedback i've gotten from family members is that i have been using a lot of description, that the plot is moving along pretty slowly, and "something" needs to happen. do you have any tips or advice on moving plots along quicker in order to keep the reader's attention? thanks so much!!

How to Move a Story Forward

When your character is just milling about in their world describing what they see, what they’re doing, and what’s happening to them, that’s not really a plot. It’s just a random string of events happening to your character, and typically it doesn’t make for very interesting reading. This kind of story moves slowly because nothing’s actually happening. Imagine following an average person through their average day versus following Katniss Everdeen through day three of The Hunger Games. It’s a big difference. And that’s not to say every plot has to be as exciting or dramatic as The Hunger Games, but there does need to be a conflict.

So, the first thing you have to do is sit down and figure out what your story is really about. What is going on in this person’s life that is worth writing about? Is there some sort of inner conflict they’re struggling with? Or is there an external conflict of some kind? Usually there are both with the focus being more on one than the other.

How stories begin…

Most stories start when a character’s life is still normal but just about to change. Katniss was getting ready to go hunting with Gale. Bella was settling in at her new high school after moving in with her dad, and Harry Potter was just living life as the boy in the cupboard.

What happens next…

And then something happens. This is called the “inciting incident” because it “incites” the conflict and brings on the important events of the story. Katniss volunteers as tribute when her sister is drafted into The Hunger Games. Bella meets Edward Cullen and an instant attraction develops between them. Harry Potter receives his letter to Hogwarts.

The character responds and forms a goal…

The character’s normal life has been turned upside down. Now what? For Katniss, the most important thing in the world to her was the safety and well being of her sister and mother, and since she is the one who keeps them safe and fed, her survival of The Hunger Games is vital. That’s her motivation, and her goal is to win the game. Bella becomes obsessed with learning more about Edward and who, or what, he is, and she falls for him and the magic his world brings into her otherwise boring life. Being part of that world is her motivation, staying alive in the process is her goal. Harry finally has a ticket out of his life of being abused and unloved, and he has a chance to connect with the legacy his parents left behind. Leaving his old life behind and embracing this new one is is motivation. Surviving his first year at Hogwarts is his goal.

But goals aren’t supposed to be easy to reach…

If the character can just sail smoothly right up to their goal, mission accomplished, that makes for a pretty boring story. You never hear people say, “WOW! THAT WAS AN INCREDIBLE GAME!” when the score was 20 to nothing. What makes the game exciting is when the teams are neck and neck, one getting ahead for a little while, then the other one being ahead for a little while. It’s the trying, and often failing, to get over obstacles that makes the conflict more interesting. In a lot of ways, that struggle actually is the conflict. What obstacles stand in the way of your character and their goal, and who (or what) put them there? For Katinss, the obstacles were the other tributes and all the frightening things added to the game by the gamemakers. For Bella, it was the nomad vampires who caused trouble at first for fun, and then later for revenge. The obstacles Harry faces are partly due to conflict with other students and teachers, and partly due to the first “shots fired” in what would become the overarching battle against Voldemort.

You win some, you lose some…

And it’s important that you show some wins along with the failures. Sometimes the character tries to overcome an obstacle, fails, tries again and succeeds. Sometimes they fail and have to come up with a work around. Either way, the fails add to the tension and drama while the wins add excitement and interest in what happens next.

The final showdown…

Eventually you get to the big showdown, aka “the climax.” This is when your character faces down the biggest challenge that stands in the way of reaching their goal. This could be an epic battle between your character and the villain. It could be the moment where your character realizes they’re in love with their best friend and they chase them to the airport to admit their undying love for them before they move away. Or it could be surviving one last night of a terrible storm before crawling out of hiding to assess the damage. Whatever it is, the culmination of that moment is achieving or failing to achieve their goal.

The dust settles…

Whatever crazy chain of events was set off by the inciting incident, they’ve come to an end now thanks to the actions of your protagonist and their friends. Or, if they haven’t come to an end, they’ve at least been waylaid for now, or things are at least moving in a better direction. Now your characters can clean up, rebuild, mend wounds, tie up loose threads, and get back to life as normal. Or, in the case of a series, they can re-group and figure out what happens next. And that’s the end.

… But some stories happen on the inside.

Some stories are more about people and their experiences than about any big crazy thing that happens to them. Stories like these are more emotional and are more about dealing with the inner conflict than an outer one. But even in stories like these, you’ll still have a similar structure to what I laid out above. It’s just a lot looser and tied up with an emotional journey rather than the physical one. Which isn’t to say they can’t have a parallel physical journey, but the important stuff is happening on the inside.

Whichever kind of story you’re writing, if you make sure you’re hitting the important points I’ve laid out above, whether they relate to an internal conflict, an external conflict, or a little of both, you can be sure you’re writing a story that is moving forward and will keep your audience engaged. Everything I’ve outlined above is the “something” that needs to happen to make your story interesting.

Good luck! :)

“Writing begins with forgiveness. Let go of the shame about how long it’s been since you last wrote, the clenching fear that you’re not a good enough writer, the doubts over whether or not you can get it done. Sure, the nagging demons will come creeping back, but set them aside anyway, and then set them aside again when they do. Concoct a hot beverage, play a beautiful song, look inward, and then begin.”

— Daniel Jose Older, from a Nanowrimo pep talk, but good advice for most any writing. (via superfluousbananas)

This is such a simple little video, and it's glorious. Has a bit of the "we're in a 70s cartoon and we're only making one noise to signify something got hit" vibe.

♪

A regular and oblivious person works at a coffee shop not knowing its a place of ceasefire for assassins and mercenaries.

ah yeah i remember reading this! It's an amazing article

no fucking way

thank you for the pnat art. Your Sauls are fun and your OCs are neat. I hope you have a good day :)

im so glad you enjoy my art!!! im sorry paranatural fanart isn’t really my focus. thank u so so much for enjoying my saul and oc drawings, that really means a lot and im super glad you like them!! here are some pnat doodles for you anon!! i’m sorry i don’t draw fanart for this comic enough, i hope you have a good day too! thank you so much :-)