Well as long as I'm being pedantic: Spoiler: Slug! Sex! Facts! Land slugs are in that wacky and weird category of critters that are simultaneous hermaphrodites (both sets of reproductive organs are functional at the same time, as opposed to sequential hermaphrodites, such as clownfish, which are born male and become female if actually I don't need to get into this). Most of them perform weird gooey slug sex (sometimes with both partners fertilizing each other), a smaller group self-fertilizes, and a few bypass fertilization altogether and skip to parthenogenesis (birth your own clone for fun and profit) Some slugs do all three. Anyway I'm not clear if slugs have genders?
I'll take all comers in regards to Namekian biology headcanons. (I love the idea of blooming.... I love them being slug people.... I'd probably love other ideas as well. Hybrid plantslugs? hell yes. Something else altogether? please tell me, i'm interested.)
There's a lot of weird questions we can have going on here. Have we seen any animals on Namek, or is it all plants and Namekians? If its the latter than clearly Namekians are plant aliens like in Martian Dreams. Or maybe 'plant' and 'slug' are restrictive Earth-centric words of definition that are meaningless to aliens. Maybe Namekians used to be yellow and fluffy until some really weird wishes happened. How does the Dragon Ball cosmology fit in, do all he planets share an afterlife?
Well there was that fish that distracted Vegeta, and Bulma ran into some giant crabs in some anime filler. Spoiler Also: frogs I thiiiinnk the way the afterlife is supposed to work, is that there's one afterlife but distances within it are about the same as the mortal world?
For me, I like having a familiar basis to work from when I'm thinking about this kind of stuff, and "plant" or "slug" or "human conceptions of reproduction/biology/genetics" provide a nice starting point. But like I said, I'm here for basically all headcanons about it, whether they draw from actual organisms on earth or not. (Although over the course of this afternoon I've gotten very fond of the flowerslug hypothesis, haha.) If things were more based in reality I'd say yeah, they probably have their own thing going on which may resemble some systems of life/reproduction observed on Earth, but would obviously be unrelated and just a case of convergent evolution. Unless there's a common universal ancestor of all life, in which case slugs could be the long-lost and very distant relatives of the Namekians.
Having thought about it, I am also on favour of floweslugs, becuase that is the most ridiculous option and now I'm imagining Piccolo having Opinions on mulch and soil drainage.
Ch 268 I'm so glad we spent a whole page+ talking about namekian biology (Vegeta in Overdrive!) Where were we? Oh right. Vegeta just threw dirt in Zarbon's face and then hit him real hard in the back. The hit sends him flying and Vegeta spikes him down into the ocean with a double-fisted attack, followed up by some rapid-fire bolts. In the ensuing chaos, Krillin tries to run with Bulma, but Vegeta notices and sends a few blasts their direction to keep them in place. Maybe due to Vegeta's slight distraction (but then again maybe not, Zarbon's seemingly no pushover, especially not in his ugly form), Zarbon emerges from the water and is looking really unkempt: hair in disarray, broken armor, ripped leg- and armwarmers, dripping wet. Vegeta says that Zarbon's just about at the end of his rope, Zarbon disagrees, and so Vegeta explains Saiyan Biology 101. vegeta puts on his professor hat again Zarbon attacks him, saying that Vegeta will never be able to beat him while he's transformed, and there's just a flurry of hits, until jfc just stuck his hand right in there. that glove's no good anymore. he'll never get the bloodstains out of it. except later on it's completely pristine so maybe it's bloodproof. Zarbon asks Vegeta for mercy; having someone stick their hand into his abdomen seems to have made him a lot more willing to cooperate. Vegeta says (paraphrased) "Fuck no, and fuck you," and blasts a huge hole through Zarbon before tossing him back into the ocean. He turns back to Krillin and Bulma and kind of compliments Krillin on having gotten stronger since Earth (although he's still way too powerful for Krillin to take on). Krillin tries to bargain with him, and Vegeta goes along with it; in exchange for handing over the dragon ball, Vegeta will leave them alone. Having obtained the dragon ball, he takes off with a laugh. At this point, Gohan is the only thing that stands between him and getting his begloved hands on all seven dragon balls. Ch 269 (Brains and Brawn) a cute imperiled gohan Gohan's on his way back when he senses (of course) Vegeta, heading towards him. He lands and hides his presence, but he's not in a particularly advantageous spot (there's nowhere really to hide) and Vegeta notices the ki and the disappearance of the ki, which is of course worth investigating. Gohan's behind a rocky outcropping barely taller than he is, just out of sight of Vegeta, who tells the owner of the mysterious vanishing ki to come out in the open or else he'll destroy the area. my brave boy Gohan climbs up and shows himself, and then it's time for some chitchat. vegeta: "what's the most unpleasant way i can describe the bald dude. oh i know" JESUS CHRIST Vegeta asks about the radar and Gohan says it's a pocket watch. Vegeta accepts this without too much thought and asks about Goku. jesus christ vegeta could you be any more of a fucking creep Vegeta knees Gohan in the gut (fuck you vegeta) and then steps on him (fuck you vegeta), says he'll stop by earth sometime to destroy it, and takes off with yet another laugh. Miraculously, he completely missed the four-star ball throughout all of this, so in spite of the knee, Gohan has come out well ahead in this encounter and Vegeta just looks like a dumb asshole. Serves him right. Bulma and Krillin have packed up camp and are waiting for Gohan anxiously when Gohan arrives with the dragon ball. Krillin's like "We gotta get out of here stat, something real bad just happened" and Gohan's like "I know, I ran into Vegeta on the way back". They set off, while Vegeta's arrived back at the village he massacred and is swimming around with the stolen one-star ball, searching for the one he hid. Gonna be in for a bit of a rude shock in 3... 2... 1...... * soothing underwater stage video game music plays * haha you dumb asshole, too full of yourself to take a moment to stop and think. that's what you get for hurting gohan who is a good and nice child that doesn't deserve any shit from you He rockets up out of the water and is real fuckin pissed, and we get a panel of wild-looking bloodshot-eyed Vegeta again. Haven't seen that version in a hot minute, Vegeta's been in a fairly good mood on Namek so far; things have been going his way for the most part. He flies fast enough to leave a huge wake plume and to break apart islands as he passes them (why is their flight so destructive?). He arrives at the abandoned camp site, can't find them, destroys it too, and vows that he'll make them suffer when they come for the six dragon balls he's gathered so far. The Earth gang has found a new place to hide, which isn't as nice as the old one, but it's something. Bulma's going to have it all to herself, because Krillin's gonna take Gohan to see the Grand Elder and get his latent power released... at which point, maybe he'll be a match for Vegeta? Sounds a bit farfetched, but who knows how much untapped power Gohan might be hiding away.
Ch 270 i want to know what saiyan hair feels like. it keeps its shape so well (at least in purebred form), i wonder if it's... super coarse or wiry? (Premonitions of War) Bulma's having a snack in the new hideout while Krillin and Gohan are going the slow way to the Grand Elder's, trying to keep out of Vegeta's way. Vegeta, unable to find them at the old campsite, goes and deposits the stolen one-star ball with the five he stole and stashed away. pffffft while they do seem like a good size for vegeta to sit on, i can't help but immediately think he's trying to hatch it. AU where vegeta hatches a dragon ball and has a dragon kit to take care of for the rest of the series. nothing else changes glad to see you're keeping yourself occupied Goku makes a bunch of kamehamehas and lets himself be hit by all of them. He then collapses, crawls to the back of senzus he brought, and takes one. what a face lol, and you look ridiculous in those tattered clothes Right after taking one he comments to himself, "Wow I should be more careful, almost killed myself with that one!" And uuuuh while this is certainly playing into the Saiyans-get-stronger-each-time-they're-nearly-killed thing, should not you be the slightest bit more careful, my brazen young man? If you die your son and friends are probably well and truly fucked. Goku's also eaten 4 of the 7 senzus and may well eat more, as he has two days left before reaching Namek. That does not leave many for healing during battle on Namek. Another day passes.... I guess things stay about the same on Namek and no one really makes any kind of moves. I wonder if Vegeta is still sitting on his e̶g̶g̶ dragon ball. What's Freeza doing? Is he waiting for Zarbon to come back with Vegeta? Trying to fix the ship? Out searching for either dragon balls, Vegeta, Zarbon, or Namekian villages? Just having some relaxing time till the Ginyu Force get here? (I did talk about them, right? They're on their way and should arrive around the same time as Goku, I think.) Goku turns the gravity back to the Earth norm, has a good time feeling super light and bouncy in the reduced gravity, takes a bubble bath and gets water everywhere, then conks out for a while. (read right to left) well okay then narrator Oh, it's Freeza time. He seems to have given up on Zarbon after a really, really long time. He's counting on the scouters the Ginyu Force are bringing to track down Vegeta and probably do something nasty to him. Gohan and Krillin, going the slow way, still have not reached the Grand Elder. Krillin's worried the Grand Elder might have already died (he hasn't, because the dragon balls are still dragon balls, but of course Krillin doesn't know that). uh oh vegeta... what exactly did you eat to leave those bones also: uh oh Ch 271 (The Enemy of My Enemy...) Vegeta, having sensed Krillin and Gohan, takes one of the dragon balls (the one he was sitting on, in fact) and sets off to find them. Meanwhile, his targets have almost reached the Grand Elder's spire when - uh oh - Vegeta gets in range of Krillin's sensing abilities and they realize holy shit, Vegeta's like right fucking there. In the last seconds before Vegeta arrives, Krillin tells Gohan to get to the Elder and get unlocked; he'll try to hold him off for as long as possible. smokin'! Vegeta assumes that something's going on with the spire up ahead and zooms right over Krillin to get there (although he thinks the four-star ball is stashed away there, which is very wrong, but points for trying). The Elder's got his hand on Gohan's head when Vegeta lands on the spire, but hasn't yet unleashed his true potential. Nail (the very Piccolo-looking Namekian who's been hanging out with the Grand Elder) steps out and tells Vegeta to go away. Before any shit can go down, Gohan finally gets upgraded! Sensing the ki, Vegeta thinks that Goku must be inside (which brings up a number of questions re: ki and how it works). Vegeta yells at "Goku" to come out, and out steps our newly powered-up boy. Vegeta is shocked by this and wants to know WTF Gohan did to suddenly become so much more powerful. In the midst of all of this, the Grand Elder senses a vast power approaching the Planet and has Dende run out to tell everyone that someone's coming. Seems the Grand Elder felt it first, but now that people are paying attention (or maybe the approaching something has gotten close enough) they're able to sense it too; Krillin thinks it must be Goku, but Gohan thinks that there's more than one, and Vegeta apparently recognizes the ki as the Ginyu Force (...somehow, either through inference (multiple extremely strong energy signatures = Ginyu Force) or maybe through recognizing their feeling, although since he's so new at being able to sense ki, I'm leaning toward the first one). these guys must be bad fuckin news if vegeta's willing to just... try to bargain rather than relying on his own power/cunning/planning/etc. there must be some violent mood whiplash going on here. one second vegeta's ready to kill you in an instant, full of himself, extremely confident in his own abilities... the next he's... talking to you like you're sort of on the same side. it really drives the point home that uhhhh these people who are coming are really, really bad, if they make vegeta act like this and want to work with someone. Krillin suggests making Gohan immortal, but Vegeta shoots that down because he's "inexperienced tactically", which is true but kind of a weird reason. If he's immortal, does it matter? !!?
Ch 272 vegeta is that overleveled character that joins your party and then quickly becomes underleveled later on because of weird exp mechanics (The Ginyu Force) I may be getting too deep in my JRPG Dragon Ball AU. Anyway, I realized I forgot a page from the end of the last chapter because I was so enamored of them all flying off together that I assumed it was the end. The Grand Elder sends Nail out to help out Team Earth, because his talents will be better spent in that pursuit, rather than guarding the Grand Elder. Last panel is a shot of the fabled Ginyu Force (in pods) getting real close to Namek. Moving on to 272, shit is happening. First page: Ginyu Force pods crashland on the planet. (Also, everything's in color!) Shortly after, the Krillin/Gohan/Vegeta party grab the dragon ball from the camp and take off immediate for Vegeta's stash of five. Meanwhile the Ginyu Force pods open ominously.... i can't tell if i'm underwhelmed, overwhelmed, or just whelmed enough. that's a Lot to take in all at once, so maybe i'm overwhelmed. Oh, also - do scouters only come in left-ear styles? guess it makes sense, generally people have two ears and one of them is a left ear, but it's surprising how consistent it is Next comes some TRULY EXCEPTIONAL posing from each member of the Force as they introduce themselves to the audience/announce their presence to Freeza. I'd seen this before and I knew it was coming but I still spent about 20 seconds laughing at these couple of pages OH HEY SO I NEVER GOT THIS BEFORE BUT THEY'RE ALL NAMED AFTER MILK PRODUCTS! wow the Ginyu Force is truly the gift that keeps on giving Guy with the horns and the veiny head - Ginyu, leader (name is a pun on gyuunyuu, or 'milk') Small dude with four eyes - Guldo (from yoguruto, 'yogurt') Red dude with white hair - Jace/Jeice (from chiizu, 'cheese') Humanoid dude with red hair - Recoome (from rikumu, a rearrangement of kurimu, 'cream') Blue guy with red eyes - Burter (from baata, a rearrangement of bataa, 'butter') God I want a graphic of "percentage of characters named after [X] category". The predominant one has to be food, right? What with all the veggie Saiyans and now these dudes. (Other categories include "appliances", "underwear", "musical instruments" and "snails") (Aww man... I'm disappointed to see that Freeza does not have the weird-ass reaction he had to their performance in the anime, I wanted to talk about it.) The performance having concluded, it's right down to business with Freeza and the Ginyu Force: Freeza wants them to bring him Vegeta so they can get the location of the stolen dragon balls out of him. Ginyu says they've already located Vegeta with their scouters (plus two others who are with him). Freeza says to kill those ones on site. in their spare time i wonder if they host one of those kind of teambuilding retreats They set off. Gohan/Krillin/Vegeta have not yet gotten to where he left the dragon balls, so it's going to be close, if they even manage to get their before they're intercepted by the Ginyu Force. Meanwhile... so i wasn't really thinking about it before, but there's no guarantee he'll land anywhere even remotely close to where all of the action is going down on Namek. I suppose he's gotten super crazy in his training over the past couple of days and doesn't care about being noticed, but if he lands on the opposite side of the planet, that's still not great, right? Goku prepares for landing by brushing his teeth and getting dressed in a new gi. a) HE WEARS SOCKS!! i don't know why this is such a revelation to me but it threw me for a fuckin' loop and b) i guess there's really not much you can do at this point but hope they do stay alive until you get there but there's something so cavalier about saying it like that SPACE MADNESS Back on the planet's surface.... aww heck yeah you guys made it (there's too much going on right now but i want someone to look at the bones and be like "vegeta what were you eating") NO come onnnnnnn they were right there "vegeta-chan" good lord you must be powerful i can't imagine the new echelons of rage vegeta would ascend to upon being referred to as "-chan" and i doubt many people weaker than him would survive the experience Well fuck. Things are looking pretty bad. The incredibly powerful Ginyu Force, strong enough to make Vegeta want to work together with Team Earth, has at the last moment prevented them from getting all seven dragon balls together and making their wishes. Plus Goku's still like ten minutes away from landing and who knows how long it'll take him to get into it when he actually sets foot on the planet.
Ch 273 I actually have forgotten a lot of the details of stuff that happens (although obviously I remember broad strokes and whatnot)... Like I'm surprised how much (Five Deadly Fighters) The Ginyu Force threatens to use... well, force, if Krillin and Vegeta won't hand over the two dragon balls they're carrying. Vegeta, being the quick thinker that he is, takes action and hurls the dragon ball he's carrying off towards the horizon - much like he did earlier, to get them out of Freeza's ship. The blue guy with the red eyes takes off before he's even back on two feet after chucking it and is back in a flash. Whoops. this would be my thought too, but :( that would probably mean never being able to bring anyone back, under the assumption that the Grand Elder's gonna die and who knows if any other Namekians know how to make them/have the power to make them/even manage to survive beyond this point. No more Piccolo, a fate worse than death (i do like how quick vegeta is to take action or to think of potential solutions in some of these situations) Krillin tries to, but somehow, the little Ginyu Force member with the four eyes manages to snatch it, and Krillin punches empty air instead. got our first Time hero over here (speaking of which... somehow I'm very enamored of Space for Piccolo, and maybe Dende should be a Sylph of Heart/Life or something) good fucking lord your creepery is rivaling vegeta's earlier creepery okay, this actually got me to laugh, and also what a specific form of TLC. is that how ginyu treats his comrades when they do a good job? * pats head, throws Jace in the air * Ginyu himself decides to take Vegeta on and leaves the others to fight over who gets to kill Krillin and Gohan, but the rest of the Force protests so much that he decides to let them do RPS to decide who will do what while he takes the dragon balls back to Freeza. The winner of RPS can fight Vegeta and the runner-up gets Krillin and Gohan ("the two little ones", which, accurate, but still kind of rude). i know it wouldn't work to just run but... they're just standing around watching a game of RPS that's supposed to decide who's going to be killing them (how can they get so many ties in a row) (how widespread is RPS in the universe???) The tall one with the hair (Recoome, I think) gets to fight Vegeta, and the little one with four eyes (.... Guldo?) gets to fight Krillin and Gohan. Ginyu takes off with all seven dragon balls hovering around him (like Freeza, he doesn't have to physically hold onto them). Gohan starts to try to attack him, but Vegeta stops him, then calls Krillin over for a bit of pre-match strat talk. He warns Krillin to not be fooled by Guldo's low power level and asks about Goku. :( Guldo steps up to be the first to fight, because otherwise Krillin and Gohan will just get in the way of Recoome and Vegeta's fight. He grumbles about it. Krillin and Gohan, who have been suppressing their ki all this time, suddenly un-suppress it, which makes the four Force members sit up and take notice. The chapter ends with Gohan and Krillin simultaneously attacking Guldo with beam attacks. Ch 274 (Guldo's Psychic Powers) Guldo yells "Stop!" and time obligingly stops. He hustles out of the blast zone and tries to locate Krillin and Gohan, who've already left the point from which they attacked. Guldo has to unstop time for some reason, and there's an explosion as the beams hit the ground. Krillin and Gohan go to attack him again, Guldo stops time again and tries to hide behind a rock. The stopping time thing takes a lot of effort, apparently, and so he has to instead use a paralysis technique which stops them in midair. While they're paralyzed, Guldo uses his psychic powers to shape a crude spear out of a tree trunk and throws it at Krillin. He promises to take care of Gohan with another supernatural power. What could that be? He's stopped time and paralyzed his enemies, and even people without "supernatural" powers can do things like make other people blow up, create light, etc., etc., so god knows what it could be. HOLY FUCKING SHIT VEGETA Well, we'll never know, because Vegeta stepped in while Guldo was distracted and just fucking severed his head from his body. Disturbingly, Guldo's head can still talk, and he tells Vegeta that he wasn't being fair because this was a fight between him and "those kids". i'm going to be saying "that really pops my cork" now aren't i i'm thinking 70-30 on vegeta actually telling the truth about just wanting to take out guldo/vegeta not being 100% truthful in reporting why he did the thing so i'm just gonna link the last page of the chapter here because there's too much good stuff going on and i only have one more image upload left. The remaining squad's main complaint being they have to come up with a new pose (or rather, Captain Ginyu does). Redoing the RPS to see who gets to fight Gohan and Krillin next. Krillin saying that they seem a "little strange". Vegeta's superintense glare and saying "...the real hell begins now...". It's all great. This is a good page.
