With Animalia focusing mainly on its summer events, it was easy to forget about world events. However, there were a few things that started around this time that were actually because of world events.
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What was probably the biggest thing going on was a new influx of immigrants to Animalia and its colonies. However, what was the most significant, in many ways, was that they were Ukranian refugees fleeing the conflict there, and roughly 25% was either maimed or severely injured from the conflict. Horizon, understandingly, offered them discounted conversions, sponsored by Hunni Bunni of all people, much to the surprise of many. Surprisingly, the oldest refugees were suffering from radiation poisoning, clearly from Chernobyl, and Horizon was interested to see whether or not radiation had a hand in muscular development, since Hunni was officially recorded as a survivor of Chernobyl.
As expected, anti-immigrant internet users and groups began making noise about the newest members, but these were mostly ignored or countered by snappy one-liners.
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Speaking of radiation, Heiya Island had its own surge of new members for its own branch of Project Phoenix. These people, both men and women, were also suffering from radiation-based ailments. Unlike Tsukuyomi, who offered them sponsorship, these weren't atomic bomb survivors. These were actually survivors of the Fukushima Daiichi disaster. Japanese scientists were also interested in learning if radiation poisoning could lead to enhanced physiques in Animalians.
Of course, whether or not it was true, "radiation therapy" would NOT be offered as an option for conversions or upliftings. While there were those, both publicly and online, who were inclined to grumble about it, there were plenty of people who not only knew, but shared images and stories from when radioactive materials were used in everything from food and drink to beauty products to objects designed to glow in the dark to even curing impotence in men, much to the surprise of everyone. Some witty people had some clever things to say about this:
Critic@l_Cr1tiqu3: Now we know why Americans are getting dumber. It's because their brains were getting cooked from products like this.
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The most recent episode of "When Worlds Collide..." was a multi-part adventure. The first part was when Arthur and his knights, William, Hide, and Hanzo, and the Musketeers investigate sightings of a strange boar man and werewolf. The White Spirit Stone revealed, against all expectations, that the boar man and werewolf were actually the ghosts of Shibata Katsuie and Maeda Toshiie, two of Oda Nobunaga's retainers, and old friends of Hide.
The second part of the adventure was when they encountered three Tolkienesque trolls (inspired by the encounter in both the book and the movie). While they were able to hold their own for a while, reinforced with Katsuie and Toshiie, they were forced to surrender when they took Hide hostage ("Lay down your arms, or we'll rip his off!"). When one of the trolls, halfway through debating/arguing over how they were going to cook them, mentioned that dawn wasn't too far away ("I don't fancy being turned to stone."), Arthur decided to play for time, from sharing the "secret" to cooking manflesh, to saying that they were all infested with parasites. This enabled Merlin to get into position to break a boulder and allowing the sunlight to turn them to stone, much to Katsuie and Toshiie's confusion.
"For these kinds of trolls, daylight is death. They must be underground before dawn, or they go back to the stone of the mountains they were created from and never move again." explained Merlin.
After they found their lair of the trolls, they burned the human body parts that had been arranged into macabre artwork (with the fire blessed by the French Priest) and placed the gold into bags to bring back to Ieyasu. One of the treasures found in the troll hoard was a Lucky Mallet, which was reputed among Japanese to shrink people down so small that they could pass through the eye of a needle.
The third part was when they got back to the city only to find it full of poisonous-looking green mist, and Ieyasu had fallen ill, much to everyone's suspicion. The Lucky Mallet suddenly jumped out of their possession and led them to a nearby estate, where the green mist was somehow the source. When the Lucky Mallet shrank them down, they discovered, once they found his room, that it was Ieyasu who was the source of the mist. After a misadventure or two, they found a gourd flask where Amaterasu's councilor Kasugami had been imprisoned. With her help, they learned that the source of the mist was the famous, and famously cursed, sword Goldnail. Then Hide revealed that his dagger was really the sacred, seven-edged blade Sohayamaru. With Kasugami's aid, as well as her skill in drunken boxing, Hide was able to sunder the blade, and end the poison mist.
As a twist ending, Nobunaga revealed that he hadn't departed, but instead decided to stay to help deal with 'the pall of shadows that had been cast over the land'. He then revealed another twist that only William seemed to know about.
"It's the Spanish ninja." he had said, "She is heading to Byodo-In. She intends to use the power of the Spirit Stones to resurrect the Monkey." At that, the scene froze and the caption To be continued... appeared.
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As was the theme, conversions were offered for homosexual couples at half price, as well as hermaphrodite conversions. Probably what was the most interesting, in a way, was the conversion of the asexual couple into horse herms (thank you, internet). Doing the conversions within MRI machines was considered important because it helped record and show the development of hermaphrodite characteristics, not just primary and secondary.