[if april showers bring may flowers, then july showers bring. . .?]

[sevenhorrorsmods]

Who: everyone!
When: July 31st throughout the day
Where: outside, but also wherever you want to be!
What: a general all-purpose mingle with flavor
Warnings: nada

[Today, for the first time since your arrival, dark and angry clouds gather in the sky above to block out the sun. It is sweltering outside, so when those clouds eventually open up in the early afternoon, showering everyone with cool rain, rolling thunder, and a few flashes of lightning. . . it probably feels good!]

[It seems to be normal rain, for the most part. Look at it from the wrong angle and some if it may seem to be tinted red, like blood. And sometimes, when a drop spatters against the ground, a spider lily suddenly blossoms in its place. The flower dies almost immediately upon springing to life, its petals dissolving into dust that is quickly washed away by the rest of the water]

[dwbi]

[. . . things have been awfully quiet since your arrival. It feels almost a bit like the calm before the storm, doesn't it? Are you still waiting for that other shoe to drop. . .?]

[What else are you up to today!]

Comments

[bowtiedbones]

Though you know, the cafeteria food is actually a lot like what I eat normally. If I'm not at home for my parents to cook. Just a lot less instant ramen and freezer pizzas here.

[presgarddihellis]

... I can't even say I didn't eat healthily in my hometown but at the same time, street food is still better...

[bowtiedbones]

Where are you from? There's no good street food where I am. Like, there's fast food if you go down 101, but I'm not going to drive all the way into town and then go to McDonald's.

[presgarddihellis]

[... the American stereotype?!]

Originally... China. In the southwestern region.

[bowtiedbones]

Oh! I've heard China has good street food. I've never gotten the chance to visit. But I heard they just found the oldest fossilized peach pits there! That's fun.

[presgarddihellis]

That would make sense, wouldn't it? Since peaches were cultivated in China originally?

[bowtiedbones]

Yeah, like, that's one of the cool things about it. The peaches were there first! Like it was already the size of a small modern peach. Pre-agriculture!

[presgarddihellis]

... that is interesting. Most fruits' fleshes grew larger with cultivation, didn't they?

[bowtiedbones]

There are bigger peaches now, and obviously there’s ton of varieties. So cultivation has made changes for sure! But the idea is they experienced a lot of natural selection from pre-human primates too.

[presgarddihellis]

Ah, right, because they would have just eaten the ones that tasted better and leave the stone--the pit.

[bowtiedbones]

Two million years is a long time for apes to be picking the juiciest and tastiest peaches.

[presgarddihellis]

Well, it not just being apes.

But two million...

[bowtiedbones]

Two million and more!

[ISNT EVOLUTION FASCINATING]

[presgarddihellis]

[that is so much time.

staring into the abyss of time feels, yep.]

... do you ever think about it the other way? How things will be like that far in the future, I mean.

[bowtiedbones]

No, not really. Like when people try to imagine what a cat will look like in ten thousand years? Not really. Everyone wants to make up a cool alien animal, but nobody appreciates how long the animals we have have been around for. Like, you can tell me there’s flying squid in 10,000 years if you still include completely normal crocodiles.

[presgarddihellis]

[complicated expression is complicated before he smiles.]

That's true. Not much would change over that much time. Even all the dinosaurs are separated by tens of millions of years, aren't they?

[bowtiedbones]

Tens of millions of years on the low end! Like you mean how Stegosaurus never met T. Rex? But do you know there were beaked flighted birds before T. Rex too?

[she loves this stuff, she can’t imagine the future she’s not done tearing through the past yet]

[presgarddihellis]

I did not know, no.

[bowtiedbones]

It’s true! And by like sixty million years! Everyone knows “birds evolved from dinosaurs,” but evolution’s not a straight line. They co-existed.

[presgarddihellis]

Much like the prehistoric megafauna and the apes that preceded humans eating peaches.

[bowtiedbones]

And the prehistoric megafaunal apes that preceded humans eating peaches.

[SHOUT OUT TO GIGANTOPITHECUS]