Because August is considered a "slow" part of the year, there wasn't much going on in terms of holidays. However, that didn't mean that there weren't things going on at all.
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The latest episode of "When World Collide..." again outdid all expectations, especially for those who expected it to 'start off good, but flop toward the end', like Game of Thrones did. When Hide, Arthur, Beowulf, and the other members of the expedition finally arrive at the fallen dwarf kingdom, everyone is finally introduced to Ancalagon the Black, Smaug's great-grandfather (after a fashion). While Hide, Arthur, and Beowulf, aided by their magic blades, they were able to hold their own for a while, but Ancalagon suddenly broke off the fight to attack a nearby village because D'Artagnan had pocketed a golden cup from the hoard.
William, who had stayed behind at said village because his Nigitama, Saoirse, was becoming ill due to her being far from the sea, immediately leapt to the defense of the village. However, his arrows, musket balls, and hand cannon ammunition were proving little to no effect on Ancalagon's scales, but that didn't stop him from trying. When he was finally completely out of ammo and left with a broken bow from one of Ancalagon's passes, one of the children from the village revealed that he had a single Black Arrow (which was, in the real world, a 1:1 replica from the Hobbit movies). After William had created an improvised ballista from his broken bow and nearby wreckage, and balancing the arrow on the child's shoulder, he faced down Ancalagon, who was angry at William's insolence to challenge him.
However, he didn't notice that a silvery white light was now shining on him, revealing a scabbed over wound in his chest that had proved his end the first time, but William did. He sent the Black Arrow straight at the wound, killing Ancalagon, again. However, in a plot twist nobody saw coming, Ancalagon was revealed to be a construct made out of spirit stones, making William realize that there was more going on than initially thought.
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Joanne had caused a minor incident at New Zerzura by running around it a few times in a caffeine-induced haze, mainly because of how her flapping ears, grinding teeth, and dilated eyes made people think she had an infectious disease, but the authorities decided to let her off with a warning to be more careful with caffeinated beverages after Nicole explained it.
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Another new whiptail Animalian was making waves alongside her 'sisters', though for different reasons. Though nobody really knew if she was a lesbian or a trans woman, she had described her transformation as "converting masculine flab to feminine muscle". The temporary postponement of the whiptail project had, understandably, caused quite a bit of controversy, but it was considerably doused when it was learned that the whiptails had begun noticing the male lizard Animalians, which was completely undocumented anywhere. One commenter gave a somewhat plausible answer, even if it was based on fictional material:
Sp@c3_M@n_F@m: Maybe it's just like the Asari from Mass Effect: taking some genetic material to induce some variation to adapt to sudden changes without overwriting anything major.
Of course, there were still trolls who were causing the usual problems, sensationalists who were blowing things way out of proportion for coverage, and conspiracy theorists posting all kinds of ridiculous rants/theories about why it had been postponed, most of which had no real basis in fact or easily debunkable.
Ra10nal_M@n: I shouldn't be worried about them; they're just so obsessed with their own conspiracies they can't tell the difference between their left and right hands.
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While late summer was getting hot this time around, both for Animalia and its colonies, Vilcabamba was getting a different kind of summer weather. Miles' return to Animalia had been delayed by the simple fact that it was now raining hard. Fortunately, this enabled him to spend some time socializing with his parent's "friends-with-benefits" because most of the time he'd been focusing mainly on his coverage of the colony, and the cave that had been discovered.