craniumsquirrel

[craniumsquirrel]

AND IT'S MY LUCKY NUMBER TOO

I need to find this, stat!

NICI Derby Friends - Gold Ship

[craniumsquirrel]

There is a species of butterfly that lives in the mountains.

When it hatches as a caterpillar, it lowers itself to the ground on a strand of silk, and then produces a chemical that smells like the larvae of ants. An ant eventually discovers it, lured by the scent, and brings it back to the anthill, where it is cared for by the colony until it pupates. After a few weeks, the adult butterfly crawls back up through the anthill, through the dirt and the winding tunnels, and out into the sunlight before it can finally open its wings.

Some say that the caterpillar “tricks” the ants into doing this. I don’t know if I agree – I think it’s too small a thing to accuse of guile, don’t you?

With this in mind: Once upon a time, there were seven dwarves.

They lived and worked in the mountains, mining for gold and jewels and precious things. And one night, after a long day’s labour, they heard a knocking at the great stone doors of their mountain.

Outside, shivering and small, they found a human child.

I’m sure you can guess most of what she told them. Stepmothers were involved – it’s not important. What’s important was that each of the dwarves felt a dire and pressing need to care for the child, and they took her into their home, fed her, clothed her, and gave her a warm bed to sleep in. And many seasons passed around that mountain, with the dwarves raising the child as one of their own, until one autumn’s day.

The girl laid, slender and still, in a coffin of spun glass. And some weeks later, one of the dwarves had the idea to call for a prince. This was of course the sensible thing to do, and the prince of a nearby kingdom who listened to the story thought an ensorcelled girl would be a grand thing to rescue.

Poor devils. It feels cruel to judge them. But there were so many questions they could’ve asked – what was this stepmother’s name? Was she real? Did she exist? Who had made the glass coffin? Surely one of them must’ve thought of the question. And why did it grow more opaque with every passing day?

Were they wrong to trust?

I guess it doesn’t matter now.

The moment the prince stepped into the subterranean chamber with the glass coffin, it shivered with a twinkling, plinking noise. Threads of glass exploded into glittering, razor-edged confetti.

A claw split the great glass cocoon.

The thing that spilled out of it, hulking and huge, knew in the fog of its mind, in a base animal sense that screamed, that it was in a room too small for it to fit. It wanted up. It wanted out.

In front of it was some twiggy little thing holding a sword.

It took its first breath.

The flames were the colour of cornflowers.

The dwarves fled. The thing followed close behind, up, up, up through the stone and the winding tunnels, not to chase, not to hunt, but to get up, to get out, out, out–

It struck the great stone doors at a run. They crumbled like gingerbread. And then there was sunlight, and the open sky…

And it could finally open its wings.

Convergent evolution is a hell of a thing.

The dragon, of course, lived happily ever after with its loot of gold and jewels from a hastily abandoned dwarf mine. Being much bigger than a caterpillar, we could accuse it of tricking the dwarves who were kind to it, had taken it in, had fed and clothed and warmed it.

It probably wouldn't mind.

[craniumsquirrel]

this would kill a victorian child

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No, it was a global solution! How else is a fox supposed to get a job in this economy?

Foxes disguised as monks. On the left from Japan and on the right from Denmark.

[craniumsquirrel]

Gold Ship, ladies, gentlemens, and those both and neither. A horse amongst horses.

Gold Ship Moodboard

[craniumsquirrel]

modding skyrim be like

[craniumsquirrel]

the beautiful words of @skylerhyrule

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Gold Ship is the shit. His father and brother were also problem children, but Golshi has my heart.

He could absolutely be a temperamental asshole who once caused race bettors to lose like 200 million yen overall in a single race because he decided to try and throw his rider at the gate. Sometimes he'd just decide he wasn't going to do stuff today, but when he ran he ran the competition into the dust. He got nicknamed Silver Collector because he didn't really collect major prizes, but he was always threatening to - plenty of place and show awards.

He seems to be a pretty playful guy too; I have seen some excellent video of him just hopping around in the exercise yard and digging with both his hooves and nose like he's trying to excavate treasure.

But the best part about Golshi? He's never run on full steam ahead mode. When he retired, they did a full physical to see how he'd be for studding, which he passed with flying colours - none of the strain or injury you'd expect from a horse who had given his all in races for a few years straight. The only injury on record for him was a slight tooth injury that came from his habit of biting the fenceposts.

Truly one of the greatest characters of racing and the world is greater for his being in it.

Behold, the legend!

[craniumsquirrel]

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CRYING at (hammer) (hammer again)

[craniumsquirrel]

When my mother forgets a word, she is the queen of coming up with new words. Words that would take a third National Treasure movie to fully decipher. I was talking to her yesterday, and she said this: “You know the time for los jibbities is coming up. You must be so excited!” Oh, is it time for los jibbities already? I must have missed it on my calendar. Are we celebrating something? “Of course! We should all be celebrating, shouldn’t we?” OK, so los jibbities is a happy thing. It’s not like something is giving you the heebie-jeebies, which would have been my one and only guess. “Los heebie-jeebies? Now you’re making things up...and this is my show.” You’re right. The time for los jibbities is coming up. Is this a season? “Yes, the season for love. The season for pride.” OK, los jibbities. “Yeah, sound it out.” Los…jibbities. LGBTs! “Sí, mira cuz you’re gay!” “You couldn’t just say pride season? You couldn’t just… *laughs*

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If I may momentarily break keyfabe, I think the deal with D.B. Cooper is most likely that cops are just bad at finding people.

[craniumsquirrel]

Rob Zombie making brownies

EGGS milk and flour BAKE for half an hour and FROST with the back of my SPATULA

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[craniumsquirrel]

You all seemed to like the last one of these so um *tosses this at you and evaporates *