#Aka the lobsters want their due

[kodasea]

Price of gold

[ladylakebees]

I made this a little while back ago but I wanted to post this here so I have more room to explain my thoughts!!

Persona 5 Royal Characters as PKM Trainers, and why I chose their Mons:

OGERPON: This one I feel is fairly obvious, Ogerpon having multiple masks for different elements just screams wildcard.

MEW: Mew can use almost every single move of all types in existence, plus it can change its form into any Pokémon it battles...... yeah this is literally just a reference to Beneath the Mask. If the amount of legendaries/mythicals on this team bothers you, pretend this is a Ditto instead.

BLACEPHON: Outside of it being very jester-y just in looks, it's also Ghost type.... kinda like Arsene is of the Curse arcana. Also the fact that it explodes it's head to be able to rob people [of vitality] is just funny to me. Imagine the PTs exploded to distract Palace Rulers so that someone can steal the treasure.

SYLVEON: Sylveon is from the Eevee line, which can evolve into multiple different elements, which I feel is very wildcard-esqe, as well as the affection mechanic reminding me a bit of the confidant system. However I chose shiny Sylveon specifically because I thought it was funny to pretend Sylveon is his pseudo velvet assistant!

MEOWSCARADA: Meowscarada is Joker in pokemon form, I don't take criticism, thanks! .... but if you want more reasoning behind it, Meowscarada also doubles as his Morgana.

KELDEO: This one is a bit more out there, but. Hear me out. This is Goro Akechi's pokemon, his "Proof Of Justice," passed on after his death.

BOLTUND: I chose Boltund specifically because of Ryuji's golden retriever type personality, as well as invoking his elemental attribute!

CROBAT: Crobat is a rather menacing looking Pokémon..... that only evolves at maximum happiness. I think it fits Ryuji perfectly!

YANMEGA: Yanmega was chosen due to it being known for its speediness, and I thought it'd be a bit fun if Ryuji has a big dragonfly zipping ahead of him during track meets. (I know Boltund technically fits this as well, but I didn't really connect that dot until after making the team, haha)

OBSTAGOON: Obstagoon has a very punk-like appearance, and is known to taunt its opponents before using its signature Obstruct move. If you've played Royal, I just thought this Pokémon would make that One Scene in January make so much sense in the pokemon universe. Also the fact that it's abilities consist of Guts, Reckless, and Defiant was just too funny and too Ryuji to pass up.

TYRANITAR & POLIWRATH: I'll be honest, these two I put mostly to fill out the team, however I really do feel like these two are mons that Ryuji would enjoy having on his team!

LIEPARD: If you don't think this is the most Carmen-esqe Pokemon, I don't know what else to tell you.

TSAREENA: Tsareena I feel has a very model-esqe vibe to her! She'd be Ann's partner during photo shoots :)

HISUIAN SNEASLER: I know Sneasler is based off a weasel not a cat, but I feel like Sneasler is a pretty good representation of a sexy anime villainess Ann views herself as (aka Panther's inspiration)

MEGA BLAZIKEN: Representative of Ann's fire affinity!

LAPRAS: Lapras is known to be a very gentle and kind pokemon, which I feel fits Ann's position in the PTs as the "heart."

ALCREAMIE: Ann loves sweets, so Alcreamie is the PERFECT mon for her! I think she'd have the Ruby Swirl Alcreamie with strawberries specifically :)

KINGAMBIT: I feel like shiny Kingambit looks pretty close to what his PT outfit looks like, as well as being a good representative of Goemon!

ALOLAN NINETAILS: Beautiful and representative of Yusuke's ice affinity!

HISUIAN SAMUROTT: Yusuke's idea of rebellion is that of a samurai, which is what Samurott is based off of. I think the Hisuian form really embodies that vibe!

CLAWZITER: Lobster

MIENSHAO: Mienshao is a fighting type physical attacker, which I feel fits Yusuke's access to strong physical attacks.

ESPATHRA: You know that fuckass scarf Yusuke has? Yeah.

ARMAROUGE: Armarouge is a loyal warrior, who directly opposes Ceruledge. I feel it represents the PT's sense of justice really well. You'll also see later down why Makoto has this :)

MEGA LUCARIO: Lucario I feel represents Makoto's physical affinity as well as her aikido skills really well, I think he'd be her ace (hence the Mega!)

DREEPY & CYCLIZAR: I don't really know how to explain the Dreepy, but with the Cyclizar it's easier to see how I associate with Johanna! I guess this fits the Nuclear affinity as well, if you turn your head sideways.

NIDOQUEEN: Queen. Self explanatory I think!

PANGORO: it's Buchimaru!!!!!!!!!

STAKATAKA: I feel like this fits the vibe of Futaba's palace pretty well, especially the top floor of her pyramid (not the outside part)

XURKITREE & PORYGON-Z: These two are representative of Futaba's technical genius, with Xurkitree in reference to her abundance of technology, whereas Porygon-Z is in reference to her actual hacking abilities.

ORBEETLE: There was no other Pokémon I feel like represents Necronomicon, however dynamax Orbeetle I feel really encapsulates that alien sort of vibe Necronomicon has!

RUNEREGIS: Directly in reference to Futaba/Wakaba's "tomb."

TOXAPEX: A bit more on the subtle side, I feel like this represents Futaba's agoraphobia and unwillingness to leave her room at the beginning of the game (baneful bunker anyone?)

ARBOLIVA & POLITOED: Both mons are representative of her gardening prowess!

TINKATON: Small pink girl with big fucking weapon

SINISTEA: I chose the shiny version of Sinistea because it reminded me of Haru's AOA finisher! It can also represent her love for coffee, even if it's technically supposed to be tea.

GOTHITELLE: Partially representative of her affinity, but I specifically chose Gothitelle as a representation of Milady!

GALARIAN SLOWKING: Also representative of Haru's Psy affinity. I chose Galarian specifically 1) because I associate purples with Haru, but more importantly 2) the Shellder on Slowking's head is said to be infinitely more intelligent than the Kantonian's form, leading it to be able to control Slowking. Kinda like how Kunikazu Okumura controls the employees he views as robots—

CERULEDGE: Ceruledge is the embodiment of lingering malice of a fallen sword wielder, directly opposing Armarouge. This represents not only his rivalry with Makoto, but how his justice differs from the PTs. Also a very heavy handed nod to Loki :>

DECIDUEYE: Decidueye represents, obviously, Robin Hood. Also symbolic of his more easily digestible thoughts of justice (the less destructive path of taking down those who oppress the weak) .

MEOWSTIC: I'm not really sure how to explain that Meowstic gives me Detective type partner pokemon but. It does.

GLIMMORA: Glimmora within the game seems to be strangely connected to Area Zero, being found in both the Depths and Underdepths of AZ, yet also very rarely in caves above ground or within mountains. I kinda see this as a "hint" to Goro's deception, and his hidden knowledge of Mementos/the Metaverse.

HONCHKROW: Representative of his codename Crow :> I chose Honchkrow over Corviknight because I felt Ceruledge satisfied the dark knight vibe more than enough.

GARCHOMP: Needed to fill out his team, so I thought Garchomp would be a powerful and fitting addition! If you squint, you can see this as representative of Goro's physical attributes and affinity for Almighty skills!

ABSOL: A Pokémon that senses danger before it happens, leading it to mistakenly thought of as the bringer of omens; it is Kasumi's Pokemon that alerted her of the oncoming car that Sumire was running in front of.

SWANNA: Kasumi and Sumire have a sort of Swan Lake motif, with Sumire being the Black Swan of the two (too bad shiny swanna is not black :( )

GASTRODON: I just thought it was really cute how there is a pink and blue Gastrodon, sort of representative of the gymnastics uniform that the Yoshizawa siblings wear.

RIBOMBEE: Shiny Ribombee is directly representative of Kasumi's red ribbon. Can also be interpreted as representative of Sumire's Bless affinity.

FROSLASS: Froslass is said to be the soul and lingering regrets of a dead woman who's possessed an icicle. You can interpret this as either being Kasumi herself, or the narrative of Kasumi's death haunting Sumire.

HISUIAN LILLIGANT: There's no real confirmation that Lilligant is a dancer pokemon itself, however I personally feel it has the appearance of a gymnast/dancer, and it's feet being similar to dance shoes. It's signature ability being Victory Dance, as well as being known for its ability to jump high and gracefully are added bonuses :>

DARKRAI & CRESSELIA: These two pokemom are essentially the same; Pokémon who can control dreams. Cresselia is for what Maruki THINKS he is accomplishing, as well as being known for being great at healing techniques, whereas Darkrai is for what Maruki is ACTUALLY causing in terms of his goals.

JIRACHI: Jirachi is known as the "Wish Maker" Pokémon. I'd like to think Maruki encounters Jirachi when it's still asleep, and it doesn't awaken until he catches Hydrapple.

ZOROARK HISUI: Representative of the false reality itself, being the Illusion Pokemon. You could also kinda interpret it as the actual shadows within the Palace as well. However, I specifically chose Hisuian Zoroark for it's appearance of the embodiment of death, as a sort of nod to Maruki's grief over Rumi.

BLISSEY: Being a therapist, I thought Chansey would be a perfect mon for Maruki! However, I thought the evolved form, Blissey, being called the Happiness Pokémon, was too good to not have on his team. Representative also of his goal to achieve ultimate happiness for all.

HYDRAPPLE: Hydrapple is the representation of the forbidden apple from the Garden of Eden, also the name of Maruki's palace. Not only is it the forbidden apple, but also the serpent that tempts Eve into betraying God. Hydrapple is Maruki's ace.

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Feel free to let me know what you think of my teams! I had fun making them and brianrotting about their place on the team :> I also made teams for Caroline/Justine, Lavenza, Sophia, and Zenkichi! Let me know if anyone is interested in seeing those as well ♪ヽ(´▽｀)/

[milokissa707]

Weak 1 wttt/wttsh headcanon post, this one’s about Louisiana by a local.

Louisiana and Maine got in a small scrap when they first met because of lobsters. At first Louisiana said it was a large Crawfish(if he actually thought it was one or he was just messing around is up to you) and then it devolved into the time old argument of how to say Crawfish. I’m telling you, somebody who is born and raised in the state of Louisiana, that Carw-Fish, not Crayfish, but crawdad is accepted. Anyways, there are other things that they have gotten into arguments about due to the difference of the French.

Louisiana points to a raccoon: Oooo, un chaoui! (a raccoon, Louisiana French)

Maine, absolutely confused, so he switches to English: What did you just say? Why are you pointing to that raccoon?

For those who do not know Louisiana French has basically compiled West African Spanish, and indigenous American languages, and just kind of threw them together very violently.

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He’s Louisiana Creole (this also includes Cajuns if you didn’t know, there used to not be a real big distinction between the two, it’s a complicated thing).

A small historical thing for you

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louisiana_Creole_people

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creoles_of_color

The term Créole was originally used by the Louisiana French to distinguish people born in Louisiana from those born elsewhere, thus drawing a distinction between Old-World Europeans and Africans from their Creole descendants born in the New World. The word is not a racial label and does not imply mixed racial origins—people of any race can and have identified as Louisiana Creoles.

This is one of the older definitions of the creole identity. It has been shunned and forcibly erased because of racism specifically from White Creoles and the americanization of Louisiana from Anglo-American ideals. Racism is a very big problem and I wish that I could shake people and maybe even kill a few. We must acknowledge the discrimination and segregation of people of colour(of all backgrounds) in Louisiana and throughout its history. Also let’s not forget the colonization of indigenous groups done by the US, France, Spain,and Creoles. We must not forget the disgusting and horrible actions we have done and must take actions to mend these deplorable and horrific things we have done! “ But blah blah nonsense that is just racism” shut the fuck up I will kill you, I can kill the alligator I can kill you. Anyways, this is also my small reminder that we should not focussed on just the Cajun identity and just stops teaching fucking Parisian French in our schools and that we should focus on our own stuff not whatever the fuck Paris is doing.

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He is definitely a Creole of colour, he’s specifically a Gens de couleur libres (free persons of color) if you want to learn more about this look at the Creole of colour Wikipedia page,you can try to fight me on this I WILL WIN🙂! He was also a grands habitants (a Creole aristocrat, aka this boy got MONEY). I actually think he still has a lot of the money but chose to live more down to earth and rarely, if at all, uses it. Because to be honest, a good amount of us in Louisiana are poor. Anyways, thank God for Mississippi.

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We know from canon that he uses CajVE(Cajun Vernacular English), no that’s not just a “Louisiana accent”. I mean he does have a Louisiana accent, but what most people think is a “Louisiana accent” is just CajVE. If you can see I am a bit annoyed by this whole thing (not at Ben he is giving us amazing representation). Most of the time you see this done badly(CRIMINAL MINDS😡) by having a character from NoLa using CajVE when NoLa has its own Vernacular English(sometimes called the Yat accent, to me it is closer to a NYC accent). Like are there people in NoLa that use CajVE, yes of course, but if you’re character’s hole family has lived in NoLa since the beginning of colonization why in hell are they using a different vernacular dialect of English. Sorry about that tangent but anyway we have multiple Vernacular English, mostly because of the Americanization of Louisiana. He also can probably speak all of the little variations of Louisiana French.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louisiana_Creole

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cajun_English

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Orleans_English

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I think he has long hair, but not really long, probably around his shoulders. If you have been anywhere in the deep south it is hot and humid and even when I lived there I was impressed about people who have long and thick hair, bro like are you ok? Look, just give him Lafayette’s hair from Hamilton and yeah you should get it.

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I am torn between if he is just a Catholic who practices Voodoo, or if he just practices Hoodoo.But honestly, that doesn’t really matter when it comes up to this next part. He still definitely has a name that follows Catholic tradition. For those who don’t know you are supposed to have at least one part of your name that is also a Saint’s name. I think he would be named after Hubert of Liege (said like A-Bert though, because French and like the patron st of hunting… and rabies), but there are like so many st so yeah. That would probably be his middle name. For his first I really like any name like Lou, Loui, Louis because well it fits and I actually know like 7 people named something along those lines. For his last name probably Landry, Fontenot, Guidry, Boudreaux. I kind of want to throw magnolia in there, maybe it’s Latin clasificacion. I know it says that he practises voodoo, this is a headcannon so yeet!

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He’s either psychic, or he can talk to ghosts, maybe even both. I’m not religious by any means, but the whole state of Louisiana is haunted.  I lived in the suburbs and I lived relatively close(less than a mile) away from some families personal graveyard. Even in my little small town, you could find places that almost everybody could agree upon that “Yeah, somethings a little bit off there”. I’m not saying this in a bad way, not completely at least, it’s just what it is. Like I said, I’m not religious (not anymore) nor am I particularly a spiritual person(even though, yeah, I’m a pagan). When I tell you, I have seen shit that I cannot explain by science that I’ve heard shit from people that I cannot explain by science. I tell you the entire state of Louisiana, maybe not the north but at least the south is haunted as hell I’m not joking. It’s important to our culture to. A lot of people here(the majority of the state population) is Catholic and our saints and ghost stories are very important to us. You don’t have to believe in the supernatural. I don’t even know if I fully do, but I can admit to you when I have seen things that I cannot explain.  If you’re interesting about what I saw in with my experience have been super ask. 

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I think he probably use and practises with tarot cards. It might shock you that even still a lot of people in Louisiana both people who are solely Catholic and people who practice voodoo use tarot. I associate tarot with my home. I was taught by my grandmother when I was younger, remember her teaching me all the cards in their meaning . Some of my dearest memories of New Orleans is walking around the French quarter in front of  The St. Louis Cathedral (even more reasons I wish to call this man Louis) and gazing into the crystal balls, tarot cards, and crystals booths lined up in front of the cathedral. Maybe it’s because of my very strong connection to it but I cannot imagine Louisiana not doing it at least once in his life. It always shocked a lot of people especially ones who are not Catholic when I tell them that Louisiana has a strong history with Tarot. 

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Turn on my ideas for Cryptid Louisiana, it’s more specifically local stuff comparative to giant bird alligator monster.

Rougarou- I grew up on stories of this, I remember my Ma (my great grandmother, who was born in I think 1920 and spotted French and had scars from when her teacher would hit her for speaking French instead of English) tell me stories of naughty little Catholics getting eaten alive. Rougarou it’s like a weird dog, werewolf, I’ve heard alligator thrown in there sometime creature that comes and get you if you’re bad. It’s never really specified how one becomes a Rougarou or how they transform(or even if they do at all) but unlike werewolves, they are not limited to being transformed under the full moon. Hell they’re not even limited to it being night.  it’s probably one of the most well-known folklores out of Louisiana, stinking rolling and even supernatural have mentioned, and had episodes about it. Sold 6/10, probably only that high because of nostalgia.

1 New Site thing 

2 Wikipedia 

Vampire- I don’t remember who made the art of it I know someone has, yeah vampires. Shockingly we have them if you watch the origins, you probably know that. This also links back to a good story about one of our favourite vampires! 8/10

 Ghost- nothing one specific just a GHOST ! 4/10

Honey island swamp monster- I��m gonna be very blunt here. I don’t like this one and the next one I’m gonna talk about is in my opinion is better than this, but I digress. I don’t like Bigfoot but sometimes he’s also like part alligator. Eh 4/10 next one’s better

Letiche!- Boys I finally get to talk about it, this is the original OG honey island swamp monster. A combination of Cajun-Creole and Native American folklore this shit fit him this shit is my favourite creature that we have. Sometimes it’s described as the soul of an illegitimate unbaptized infant, or a human child raised by alligators. This monster haunts the swamps of Louisiana and capsizes boat(or just messing with them) or attacking people. 10/10

“There are two different origin stories for this monster. The first, more commonly accepted theory is that Letiche are the souls of unbaptized children who have passed away, cursed to linger in the unforgiving swamps and bring havoc to the area. The second story has roots in Native American mythology. The legend goes that a child was taken by swamp alligators and raised as one of their own. Over time, the Letiche developed the qualities of an alligator. So while he may still maintain some features of a man, such as walking upright and having human hands and feet, his life in the swamps among the alligators has caused him to develop many reptillian characteristics. This includes a green hued hide, not unlike that of an alligator, and of course, a set of sharp, lethal teeth”

the artis

If you wish to read more folktales from Louisiana, here you go, here’s some links, you can usually function from here

Jean Lafitte

Abita Mystery House in Abita Springs, Louisiana

Bonnie and Clyde Gas Station in Gibsland, Louisiana

Feu Follet

Jones–Liddell feud

Gris-gris (if you were wondering what he meant by that)

Marie Laveau, I don’t even truly need to link stuff for her or you can just look her up. You could buy books about her. 

Chicken Chase

I do hope you enjoyed my borderline deranged rambling about my state, feel free to use this for whatever! I very much encourage (I’m begging you) to make fanfiction and Fanart of this.

[joyfuldeepend]

Consideration

R and I were out to dinner last week. She had never had Red Lobster and somehow convinced me to take her (doesn’t take much bc she’s usually pretty sweet when it’s just the two of us). Red lobster in general isn’t much to write home about and typically when you go there you know that. Well R had never been to Red lobster and saw something on tik tok so there we were.

The dining experience left a lot to be desired but you don’t go to a chain like that (or shouldn’t) expecting to be blown away. So that was a learning experience for R who loves hibachi buffet and seafood boils. So we worked through expectations and comparing what we want versus what we get.

There was what appeared to be a double date happening one row over (2 Caucasian teenage couples, assuming seniors). Normally I am aware of those around but not typically dialed into the situation. The boys in the situation were determined to ensure everyone knew theirs. They made loud comments about how they should have gone to outback or Texas Roadhouse. The were verbally frustrated at the service and the way their food came after grilling the server about the menu and how the things were made or tasted.

When their food came they made the server stand there while they both saw if their steak was medium. Then continued the grumbling and disgust while the girls giggled. It was annoying and close to closing time so not many ppl to drown out their outbursts. R & I continued our eating and convos despite their interruptions. At one point I made R laugh and she started choking and laughing…and if you’ve met R she’s either quiet and moody or loud and silly. This was a loud and silly night. As a general rule I try not to censor her if it’s not inappropriate behavior. Side note: she has adhd and has a ton of intrusive thoughts and doesn’t get to verbalize a ton. When she’s with me not a lot embarrasses me so I let her get it all out so she does her “good behavior” aka be quiet and not seen stuff when with others. Well she was laughing loud (as many do) and then making choking sounds (don’t worry she was ok) and one of the boys started mocking her. Just as I was starting to speak up, R stopped laughing and told them to basically shut up or she’d beat them up 😂😂 I squashed that quickly and R and I talked about how it wasn’t worth it and how they had to live the consequences of their poor behavior. She thought for a moment and said “you’re right Joy…see that’s why I don’t like white people (not you Joy) but people like that.”…. It was tough not to agree with that sentiment as I watched those teenagers be entitled, rude and have zero consideration for the servers, the fellow diners or even how they were acting. I ended up saying something to my server and ensuring that table’s servers tip was covered.

While I’ve always known that I like when things are in harmony and people get along, what I can’t get behind is not saying something bc it makes things uncomfortable. I learned lately that when myself or others are not considered it makes my blood boil. Doesn’t matter the why, it matters the intent. Just bc someone is having a bad day doesn’t mean they get to take it out on someone. If someone can’t afford something, being mean to people to give a reason for why their bill should be comped isn’t right (in my opinion). I remember some years ago a friend at the time told me that hurt ppl hurt ppl as an explanation for their behavior towards me. I countered that that phrase is an explanation for those who’ve been hurt by that not an excuse to act in poor behavior due to hurt.

R and I drove home in silence and even 24 hours and it still stuck with me. My dad drilled into us about how to treat wait staff and delivery people. And also that creating safe space for others to belong was foundational as Jesus followers. When I experience people without regard for that it does something in me. I’ve asked myself if I should have been more vocal, there are about 10 tongue lashing stories I have in my head for the scenario. Or did I respond the right way. What is the point that takes us from bystander to advocate or to action. I don’t know what the point is, but I walked away disappointed in those teens and also how they represented themselves and my culture to others. We are all representing more than ourselves in every situation and sometimes it is hard to keep that in mind. What I do know is it doesn’t take much to be kind and have consideration for others. Thanks for joining me in the deep end today. May you give and receive consideration this season!

[marshmallowloves]

Restraint and Reward - (Seduce Me) James x Reader NSFW

AKA I'm sorry for only contributing content of my favorite one-- "orz

Okay I can't and won't lie: I wrote this entirely for my own self-indulgence. However, it is in first person and the narrator doesn't have a name, so hopefully you can still project if you like -u-

I sort of tried to mimic the writing style of the games. I broke up the text in many places to kind of emulate how text boxes might look in-game...? I'm bad at describing it, also it was 1 AM when I finished writing this so kdjfhg

ALSO I don't write smut... like... ever... cause I usually get too embarrassed halfway through to actually finish it sdghfj I'm sorry if it's subpar, I'm much more of a smut artist than a writer

one more thing: there's a faux choice in the middle of this thing. I originally intended to make two versions of a "part 2" and then link the respective choices, but I only finished writing for one of them, so I just… condensed it into this one post and left the "choice" in, cause I think it helps it flow better tbh. one day I'll probably try to write for the other one but for now-- EH

Anyway, Seduce Me fans I hope you're still out there 🙏 and if nobody sees it then that's okay too honestly gdkshfkg

Word count: 3308

Content: remote-controlled vibrators, public play, orgasm control/denial, overstimulation (briefly), Soft Dom™ James + submissive reader (who are also married)

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La Stanza Rossa.

An insanely fancy Italian restaurant that, growing up, I could only gaze at in awe from the car window during outings, due to the fact that I wasn't a wealth-hoarding multibillionaire.

…Alright, maybe that's a slight exaggeration. It was kind of upscale, but at least you didn't have to sell your organs to afford it.

You know what wasn't an exaggeration?

The name.

La Stanza Rossa. "The Red Room."

Not because of the color motif, the decor, or the branding…

But because this was going to be absolute torture.

I bit the inside of my cheek and stared hard at the menu, taking a deep breath. We haven't even ordered yet and this was already a struggle.

"Do you know what you want, love?"

I glanced up from the fancy leather-bound menu to meet the gaze of my husband, if only for a second. He flashed an innocent smile, gazing at me with those gorgeous whiskey-colored eyes. I could only imagine what kind of face I was making to garner that reaction.

He knew what he was doing.

Not wanting to keep him waiting, I cleared my throat and breathed a quiet sigh.

"I think I want to start with the lobster bi-i-isque--!"

I stuttered out the last word and snapped my lips shut, squeezing my thighs together to try and negate the sensation between them.

My fingers clutched the leather, leaving indents from my nails. Hopefully they wouldn't yell at us for damaging the menus.

Whatever. There are more important things to worry about right now.

Like the way James's sweet smile had turned into a teasing smirk at my response.

"I might have myself a cup of that as well," he added softly. "But I know that's not all you want, is it?"

Under any other circumstance, that sentence shouldn't have sounded suggestive.

But - and this might come as a surprise - it's very hard not to have dirty thoughts when there's a remote-controlled vibrator between your legs keeping you from choosing your damn dinner.

I closed my eyes and tried to steady my breathing.

In all fairness, I did agree to this…

Hell, I'd thought about trying this even before I learned that James was into BDSM.

Some time after that fateful and… enlightening conversation, we decided to visit a sex shop.

It was… interesting to say the least, walking into such a store alongside an incubus, but we figured it wasn't a bad place to start. It was our first foray into learning more about each other's boundaries when it came to intimacy. We considered it a bonding experience - no pun intended.

The vibrator caught his eye relatively quickly, and my only stipulation was that we got it in purple.

He chose the restaurant - and, in true James fashion, I swear it was a methodical decision.

Since it was a bit fancier, there weren't quite as many people as your average restaurant. The atmosphere was calm, and you could easily overhear the chatter of two tables over.

If anything slipped from my mouth, it wouldn't be hard for someone to notice.

I did at least get to choose what I wore.

I was never one for dressing up, nor was I used to going out to nice places like this, so I didn't have many options in my closet.

I decided I'd be just a bit bold, picking out a strapless black cocktail dress with tiered, gray ruffles. He did say he'd love to see me in black, after all.

It was a fine and comfy dress, reaching just above my knees.

But as I sat across from my incubus husband, the remote cradled in his hand under the table, this dress suddenly felt a lot shorter… and a lot tighter…

"Love? Did you hear me?"

His voice was a bit distant, between the sound of my own quickened pulse and the daydream of our trip from yesterday.

I just needed a few seconds… Just a few, and I'll be--

"Hngh--mm--!!"

I threw a hand over my mouth and clenched my legs tighter when the vibrations increased again, snapping me back to the dinner table.

That's what I get for trying to distract myself…

"There you are~," James chuckled softly. "I lost you for a minute, there."

"S-S-Sorry…" I managed to spit out between the twitches of my body. "I was, u-um, thinking about what else I wanted…"

"Were you now?" He rested his free hand beneath his chin, drinking in what he could see of me with a hungry gaze. A small chill ran up my spine. "I understand if you're having a hard time deciding. Some of the dishes they have here are quite… tantalizing."

Oh, he was absolutely doing this on purpose now.

…Not that I ever really doubted that in the first place, though. He wasn't even using his enthrallment and I was already melting at just his words.

God, I love this man.

I cleared my throat again, so focused on saving face that I barely noticed the vibrations had died down to a nearly-silent buzz.

"I could go for a steak," I said. "I'm not… terribly hungry, so… maybe the filet mignon."

It was kind of hard to have an appetite right now for anything other than… well, him, simply put.

"You're not hungry?" he teased. "And why might that be?"

"James… Come on…"

"Tell me~."

I struggled to meet his gaze, but when I finally managed to do so, James's slight smirk turned into more of a devilish smile as he watched my slowly-growing frustration.

"James, you know why…"

He chuckled again. "I do. But I want to hear you say it."

"R-Right now??" I pressed my lips together quickly. That came out a bit louder than I had intended.

I looked to my right, and saw two people seated a short distance away, turning their heads towards us. They turned back quickly when I made eye contact.

"Careful now…" James's low, smooth voice taunted me. "You don't want us to get caught, do you?"

I put a fist to my mouth and took a deep breath through my nose, my heeled feet tapping the floor beneath the table in an attempt to ground me. Fuck, those were some good words.

Thank God the tablecloth was long, and I still had the sense to lay the napkin on my lap.

Still, it didn't really help me feel any less…naked under James's stare.

Where the hell is our server…?!

"Good evening, folks."

It was like God himself had come to answer me in person.

I could have jumped for joy if the nerves in my lower half weren't absolutely liquefied. I barely even managed to sit up straight in my chair as our server finally came to greet us.

"Welcome to La Stanza Rossa. My name is Caesar, and I'll be taking care of you tonight."

Caesar, you are a veritable lifesaver. I would never even dream of repeatedly backstabbing this blessed gentleman.

"Can I get you two started with something to drink? All of our wine is 20% off this evening." Caesar looked at us with bright, kind eyes, his hands folded neatly in front of him.

"I'll have a glass of Pinot Noir, then."

"Excellent, sir. And you, miss?"

I let out a breath I didn't even realize I was holding.

"Um…" I glanced up quickly at our server. "Just a water, please. W-With lemon."

He nodded, and I stared back down at the menu. I was honestly expecting James to turn up the vibrations as I spoke just then, but surprisingly, nothing had changed.

I glanced across the table at my husband, who simply smiled at me before proceeding to order.

I took that moment to readjust myself in my seat. Hopefully I could angle myself in such a way that the vibrator wasn't pressed so flush against me, without drawing attention to myself.

"And what can I get for you, miss?"

Caesar looked patiently at me, pen and pad at the ready, as I smoothed the napkin over my lap. What an innocent soul.

I cleared my throat. "May I have the fil--! --let mignon??"

There it was.

The vibrations had strengthened for only a second - enough for me to choke on my words - then faded just as quickly. I knew James was planning something.

Readjusting had been a mistake, too. All it did was shift the vibrator closer against the most sensitive spot between my legs, making the sensation that much more powerful.

I shook my head quickly, putting a fist to my mouth and trying to pass it off as a hiccup. "E-Excuse me-- I'm sorry--"

"No no, you're alright! And your two sides?"

Oh my god, that worked?

I took a short breath. For a moment, I was honestly amazed at how I managed to push through that.

"House salad and seasonal fruit. P-Please." I sputtered out my next sentence as quickly as I could, trying to prevent another choke.

Unfortunately, it didn't really make a difference.

James, who had been eagerly watching me the whole time I ordered, redirected his attention to our server to thank him. He didn't even glance aside at me while he turned the vibrations back up, even stronger than before.

The entirety of my body tensed and I bit my cheeks to suppress a whine, nearly dropping the menu in the process. I somehow managed to close it and promptly set it down on the table beside me. My hands quickly found their way to my lap, where I clutched the napkin tightly between my fingers for purchase, and my feet curled involuntarily beneath the table. I squeezed my eyes shut a few times to clear the spots from my vision.

I was so certain I had given myself away.

Miraculously, Caesar collected the menus from the table and continued his script. Whether he noticed and simply kept silent, or whether he truly had no idea what was happening, I didn't know.

At this point, it was difficult to care about anything but the pleasure that was coursing throughout my lower body. A heat bubbled in my chest, making me want to gasp, but I managed to hold it in until Caesar left for the kitchen.

Once our server was out of sight, I closed my eyes and heaved a shaky sigh, letting my body slump forward and my head lower.

"You did so well."

My cheeks burned and my breaths wavered as I slowly turned up to look at James. He leaned over the table and reached his hand out, holding my chin gently in his fingers. His half-lidded eyes bore into me and he gave me a warm, teasing smile, before uttering two wonderful words.

"Good girl."

I could have perished on the spot.

The power this man--this demon--had over me right now was unbelievable. I was putty in his hands by this point.

And we hadn't even gotten our drinks yet.

I couldn't help but whimper as he took his hand away, letting his index finger trail under my chin.

The vibrations didn't lower again. Throughout our dinner, he would wait for me to get used to one setting before raising it to the next, knowing that the weaker ones wouldn't be enough to make me squirm anymore.

My only respite was that he'd turn off the vibrator entirely whenever I was approaching my peak. It gave me a moment to breathe, sure… but each time, he would wait longer and longer to turn it off, until I was so tantalizingly close that the sudden stillness would leave me a frustrated, whining mess.

All the while, he'd watch me shift in my seat while the pleasure wracked my body, gripping my silverware with such herculean force it could have launched right out of my hands. He'd smile as I tried my damnedest to stay quiet in this erotic game of keep-away, praising me when I spoke to our server without stuttering and chiding me whenever he saw someone glance over at us.

At one point, he had cranked up the vibrations so high that my knees reflexively jerked upwards and whacked the underside of the table. Upon hearing my cry of distinct pain, he instantly broke character and turned it off, coming over to make sure I hadn't cut myself on the wood or the like. Even in the midst of a sneaky, sinful outing like this, it would always warm my heart to see his concern for me.

That mishap definitely turned some heads--thankfully out of concern and not suspicion--so we both agreed to give it a rest for the remainder of the evening. I was definitely going home with a nice bruise, though.

We paid our check--well, more accurately, James paid our check. I offered to split, but he insisted it was to make up for what he had put me through.

When we were in his car, however, he didn't take off immediately. One of his hands rested atop the steering wheel, the other on his leg, just over the pocket of his slacks. He stared ahead, seemingly deep in thought.

"James? You okay?"

He didn't answer immediately. Instead, he uttered a thoughtful hum and turned his head towards me, his lips curling into a smirk.

He took the hand on the steering wheel and instead brought it to my face. Slowly, he smoothed it over my cheek and underneath my chin, tilting my head up to meet his dreamy gaze. He spoke with a low, sultry tone.

"I think you deserve a reward for tonight, my love."

I sank into his touch, my voice catching in my throat. With a bright blush, I could only bring myself to repeat his words back at him.

"A… A reward?"

"For being so well-behaved at dinner," he said. "Would you rather wait until we get home? We could settle into bed, or somewhere else…" He licked his lips, sending a shiver through my body. "And we could be as loud as we want."

At his words, flashes of my incubus husband absolutely dominating me in various places at home played in my mind.

James pinning me from behind against the bookcases in the library.

His head nestled between my thighs as I sat atop the kitchen counter.

Binding my arms and legs to the bedposts and refusing to touch me until I begged him for it.

Despite how insanely tempting these daydreams were… they really weren't doing my patience any favors…

James continued to speak, bringing me back to reality.

"Or…"

From the corner of my eye, I could see his other hand take the remote from his pocket. He pulled me closer and leaned over, until his soft lips ghosted over mine.

"Do you think I've teased you enough already?"

I trembled at his words, caught between my patience and my libido.

>> “I can wait ‘till we get home."

>> “No more teasing.”

Like he even had to ask.

I just sat in a fancy public eatery with a vibrator assaulting my clit for over an hour, with my own husband at the controls. I lost count of how many times I was just about to come when he suddenly stopped with a devious smile and left me to whine. Not to mention the extra effort of making sure that nobody caught wind of what we were doing.

I did not want to wait any longer. I couldn’t wait any longer.

I leaned forward and closed my eyes, pressing my lips to his in a desperate series of kisses.

“Please…” I begged between contact. “No more teasing…”

I knew James liked it when I begged.

But honestly, my pent-up need was so genuine, I don’t think that knowledge would have mattered right now anyway.

James’s grip on my chin tightened slightly as he gave me one final, deep kiss. And again, he trailed his finger under my chin as he parted, my head instinctively following to maintain that electric contact.

My eyes fluttered open, and I saw him fastening his seatbelt and shifting into drive.

Wait, really?! Come on…!

James simply nodded to me. “Go ahead and buckle in,” he prompted.

I was about to protest, but then I saw his eyes. A bright golden color stared back at me, and beneath it, a knowing smile. The warmth that surged through me from his enthrallment could have melted me to the seat.

That wasn’t a prompt. That was an order.

I did as he told, making sure the belt was snug against me. James rested one hand on the wheel again, not breaking his gaze at me.

“Good girl.”

I couldn’t stop the mewl that came from my throat at those words. He simply chuckled and turned to face the road, starting our trip home.

I sat with bated breath, but James said nothing. It was easily the longest 15 seconds of my life.

That is, until a familiar sensation hit me.

“Hnnh--!”

My knees jerked up as the vibrator started up again--thankfully, at its lowest setting, and with no table in the way this time.

I was already so sensitive from our time in the restaurant. With James’s enthrallment in effect as well, it was a wonder I didn’t pass out immediately from the overwhelming pleasure.

I clutched the edge of the seat tightly with one hand and covered my mouth with the other. Even though we were in the car by ourselves, cruising down a mostly empty road, my instinct was still to remain quiet.

James heard my stifled cries, and from the corner of my eye, I could see his thumb move over the buttons on the remote before he spoke.

“Don’t hold it in.”

Not even a second after those words, the vibrations increased, and my hand suddenly lost the strength to stay clamped over my mouth. It fell to my lap and clutched the hem of my dress, and I lowered my head as a long, loud whine escaped my throat.

“There we go. That’s it,” he purred. His voice alone was enough to draw another one out of me.

I could barely form a coherent thought. My heart pounded in my chest, my breaths became ragged, and my hips jutted up from the seat and further into the vibrator. I was already so close... Not surprising, considering what I had just been through prior.

“James, I--I ca…” I could barely manage between breaths. “I-I’m--”

James simply hummed, and I heard him set the remote in the cupholder between us before reaching over to slip my hand into his.

“That’s it, love,” he cooed. “Come for me.”

My hand squeezed his and a lengthy moan sounded from my throat, my body naturally obeying his command. White spots filled my vision as my much-needed release finally washed over me in a series of mind-numbing waves. I could only shudder and whimper as the aftershocks made me crumple back into the seat.

There was a fraction of a second afterwards where nothing existed, except the post-orgasmic bliss that served as my reward for a long, torturous night.

And then my eyes snapped open as another pleasure-filled jolt shot through my body.

It wasn’t stopping.

“H-Huh…??”

James chuckled softly and let go of my trembling hand, picking up the remote once more as we came to a stoplight. He looked at me with a sultry smile.

“What? You think I’d only let you come once?”

Between the ceaseless overstimulation between my legs and James’s teasing tone, my mind couldn’t even begin to formulate a response. I could only utter a vaguely-inquisitive whimper.

“After the evening I’ve put you through…” he continued. “If I didn’t make it up to you in full, well… That would just be cruel, now, wouldn’t it?”

My chest heaved as I looked ahead of us, and my eyes widened when I saw the names of the intersection.

James was taking the long way home.

Struggling to form words of any kind, I could only look up at him with big, pleading eyes, to which he tilted his head.

“I told you, you deserve a reward.”

James’s thumb ghosted over the buttons.

“And I intend to spoil you."

[freedfromthegalactichivemind]

Perfuma is not allowed to weaponize teddy bear cholla while in the Crimson Waste. In fact, Perfuma is not allowed near any cacti due to her tendency to accidentally kill them and the fact that many species are delicate and endangered. Entrapta is no longer allowed to mod Skyrim. Or Fallout. Entrapta and Hordak are not allowed to build real-life versions of T-45 Power Armor and let "Hordak play Fallout in real life." Entrapta and Hordak are not allowed to create real life Pokemon. (They have been educated on the concept of "crimes against nature" and bioethics. Hordak insisted that "Imp turned out fine!" but it did not convince the Etherian Maker's Guild, nor Queen Glimmer). Micah is not allowed to make food out of bugs to be served to others without their knowledge or consent. (Sea-bugs, aka shrimp, crabs and lobsters are less of a problem, but are included as some people have allergies). --------------- (Apologies for the next ones for those who don't celebrate Crimbo, I just thought certain myths were too juicy). Skip between the dashes if you don't want to see them. The Clones are not allowed to tell little Etherian children that celebrate that Santa Claus / similar Etherian mythic winter character is an evil entity. He is not Horde Prime, guys, Prime never gave you presents, nor was his punishment for naughtiness simple coal in the stocking. They are also not allowed to steal Christmas / similar Etherian equivalent holiday for the sake of protecting the children from the "Fat Man Who Sees You When You're Sleeping and Knows When You're Awake." Clones are not allowed to break people's Elf on a Shelf. Listen, guys, I hate the concept, too, but there are some kids who actually like those godawful things. ------------------ Clones who are newly differentiating themselves are not allowed to impersonate their fellow named brothers to troll Etherians. I'm sorry, guys, they really *can't* tell your faces apart, so Bill and Bob really need to stop pretending to be the Other Bill and the Other Bob. Entrapta is no longer allowed to program Emily to have a Terminator-voice. Catra is no longer allowed to run the local Fur-con.

Things that She-Ra Characters are Not Allowed to Do

So, some conversation on a topic about Catra developing an adorable love of stuffed animals to make up for her toy-deprived childhood got out of hand, with people talking about Adora winning stuffies at carnivals and the disasters that would cause... Is anyone familiar with the infamous Skippy List? (Things Skippy is Not Allowed to Do in Basic Training, Things Skippy is not Allowed to Do in X-situation), it's relative the "Things I Will Not Do as an Evil Overlord" list... and, of course, my most recent familiarity with the concept comes from my enjoyment of SCP Explained the animation series on Youtube which features "Things Dr. Bright Is Not Allowed to Do At the Foundation." I was thinking of starting a list that people could add to of "Things that Adora / She-Ra is Not Allowed to Do in Everyday Life," and then someone brought up Swift Wind shenanigans on the original thread I referenced and I had a thought to "Things Catra is Not Allowed to Do" and how I already have some short fanfics that detail why characters should not do things... Humor fans in the fandom can start a mighty list! Here goes a few of mine: Things the Cast of She-Ra is Not Allowed to Do After the War: Adora is not allowed to use She-Ra to win carnival-games. (No, it doesn't matter if you've exposed some crooked carnies or now much Catra wants that giant fuzzy penguin). Adora, regardless of leaving She-Ra dormant, is not allowed to enter pie-eating contests. Hordak is not allowed to enter pie-eating contests, either. Catra is not allowed to show young children how to play with "boom-potaters." ...... Reblog and add away!

[bakersstreetirregulars]

Labyrinth of Remembrance- Meet Amber Sugar Cookie

🐝 Alright, you’re here? Good. Let’s get this going. Too much to cover, not enough time. Wait… introductions. The name’s Amber Sugar Cookie, got invited here by the Herald’s director to introduce myself and to expedite the stuff they’re lagging behind on. You want me to explain my backstory? Here you go:

When you hear a loud buzzing sound from somewhere in a quiet flower field, it’s highly likely that Amber Sugar Cookie is nearby! Made with large portions of pure honey from the most symmetrically of honeycomb, this Cookie endeavors to create the perfect hexagonal-shaped house! A perfectionist to the bitter end, Amber Sugar Cookie will not hesitate to begin from scratch if her abode deviates even in the slightest of measurements and cannot stand to see his home becoming victim to wear and tear. How does he start over? He takes the sturdy Amber Honeydipper and wields it with great success. It’s due to this habit that none of his friends wish to build honeycomb houses with his… but Amber Sugar Cookie is determined to use sugar glass, one of his most recent interests, for making the perfect home!

There. Done. And if you read it twice, you’ll know I’m a male. NEXT! During a run, my special ability allows me to use my staff to extract pollen and Honey Crystal Jellies from flowers in the fields. Once I take flight, it’s up to YOU to get to the proper height using the Jump button, and to extract the pollen from those flowers using the “Honeydipper Staff” button, AKA the Slide button. Using my Magic Candy, jellies coat themselves in honey to turn them into Amber Jellies worth even more than before!

My pet Humble Bumble flies towards flowers periodically to collect honey before covering themselves in pollen. Once covered in pollen, they’ll shake it off to create Pollen Jellies, fresh for collection. Wanna read that backstory too? Here.

Gather enough honey into perfectly-formed honeycombs and BAM! You can become friends with Humble Bumble too! This tiny and cute bee follows Amber Sugar Cookie everywhere he goes. Why? It’s simple! Amber Sugar Cookie always Carrie’s some honey for his honey bee friends!

What, did you want me to talk about my interactions with some other Cookies? Might as well, documenting them for whatever reasons you have helps perfect the records. The records HERE will get updated as the Editor that gave me this prompter finds them himself with whatever resources he has at his disposal. Quite a worker bee, isn’t he…

Zombie (200): “These flowers are not for eating!” Tension ⚡️

Angel (300): “No blessings! Only memories!” Friendly 👍

Fairy (450): “Always in the fields, but not the type to steal anything.” Friendly 👍

Roll Cake (600): “My staff is stronger!” Tension ⚡️

Mustard (750): “Sweetness is the best!” Tension ⚡️

Sea Fairy (850): “You built this by yourself?! I can build something better!” Rival 🔥

Yogurt Cream (850): “What a nice house…! Just… wow…” Admiration 🌟

Lobster (850): “I don’t want to lose my home again either…” Friendly 👍

Sugar Glass (Affection required unknown): “This Cookie will safeguard all our memories! I know it!” Trust 🤝

BACK ON TRACK. This month’s treasure is the Paradise Compass. It’s what Gingerbrave and his group are using to help search for Paradise… wherever that is. All they talked about is the City of Wizards, but I know nothing of it, and don’t care. At given intervals, it’ll randomly spin up or down, and a fresh bundle of Life Powder appears for you to collect either on the upper or lower half of the screen, depending on where it points.

Next up, we have Costumes.

Blueberry Pie’s “Glass Atrium Respite” (+1200 Blueberry Pie Jelly Points)

Blueberry Pie Cookie has decided to have some tea in the atrium on a sunny day. Unlike her usual self, she fell asleep reading a book by the window, basking in the warm afternoon sunlight. In her dreams, images flash before her eyes. Are they a faint story, or perhaps a lingering memory? Did she read about it? Or is it someone else’s distant memories?

Moonlight’s “Primordial Light” (+600 Star Powder Jelly Points)

A very long time ago, there was the first Cookie made by the hands of the wizards. Baked through the most intricate and sweet magic, this Cookie was so beautiful it sparkled with light. Proud of their work, the wizards gave this Cookie the name Primordial Light.

Getting this costume also unlocks Dreamcatcher’s “Night Sky Suncatcher” and “The Hall of Time and Light” Lobby Design

The Dreamcatcher has gathered light since the first light of dawn. All to shine endlessly like a sun on the Cookies to give them happiness. Even cloudy and rainy days shine bright like stars in the night sky!

It is said the wizards have written down all history somewhere. Even as the ages pass, their great magic still shines in this place.

That’s all about me and these costumes. Punctuality. Is. Everything!

Editor’s Footnote: For anyone looking for semi-low specs for getting Normal Diamond Rank on his Trial, try this combi. You will need his Magic Candy at level 5, and you will need to collect a small Energy Potion further in the course (approximately where the Jelly Bees begin to appear) accompanied by a last-ditch jump to activate his skill before running out of energy after being revived by the Red Egg of Resurrection. Do keep in mind that Diamond Rank requires 330 million points, and the revival from the Egg will deduct approximately 21 million points if you use this approximate combi while collecting every Energy Potion on the course, without missing flowers in his skill, and without colliding or falling.

[teenyfish]

Marine Biology Story of the Day #9

Welcome back to the blog—hello new followers!  

So what does a marine biologist actually do for work?  Is it always adventure on the high seas?  

Well, it’s not always adventure on the high seas—you see, science isn’t exactly super well funded these days, and you need money to do that kind of stuff, AND that money usually comes from shareholders that want you to research things that may be beneficial to them.  In addition, as a biologist, you have to spend long periods of time on shore in your office and lab, analyzing data and writing peer reviewed journals in the hopes that they’ll be published.  That’s the price you pay for the cool fun times.

So what do I actually do for a living?  

Welp, a big chunk of my research is working as a shrimp disease researcher and a shrimp ecologist.

Really, Jillian?  You say, What about the sharks?  What about the deep sea?

Well, here’s the thing—big charismatic animals are cool and all, but my tumblr handle is teenyfish, and that is because what I like to research are the tiny animals that are much lower on the food chain.  Why?  Because in many ways, they are the most important, and the most diagnostic when it comes to determining the health of an ecosystem.

How’d I get into shrimp disease?

Well, I used to work for the Virginia Institute of Marine Science Trawl Survey.

Basically, we went out on the Chesapeake Bay and would catch all species of fish to determine how fish populations were doing in the Bay from year to year.  I began noticing that all the penaeid shrimp we caught began showing signs of blackened gills.

(gradient of black gill infection on left, close up of black gills on right)

I informed one of our P.I.’s (principal investigators) and our Black Gill Disease survey was born.  

What is Black Gill Disease? Well, the blackened gills are actually an immune response that a variety of marine invertebrates (crabs, shrimp, lobsters) have in response to foreign invaders (bacteria, viral disease, parasites).  In penaeid shrimp (aka the shrimp we like to eat—think bubba gump shrimp), its caused by Hyalophysa lynni, a parasitic ciliate that embeds itself into the gills of the shrimp. Ciliates are microscopic single celled organisms that propel themselves around with little “hairs”

(H. lynni, picture from Frischer et al. 2019)

Once the ciliate bites down on those shrimp gills, the shrimp release melanin  that surround the ciliate and begin releasing chemicals that break it down.  Unfortunately though, the chemicals also cause tissue death in the surrounding gill tissues, so they start not being able to breath as well. It’s kind of like when you get the flu (or COVID-19—lets be topical) and your body responds by giving you a fever that makes you super duper weak.  Gets rid of the problem, but you feel like shit. 

(closeup of healthy shrimp gills (A) vs. black gill damaged shrimp gills (B), from Landers et al. 2020)

So, this means the shrimp are weaker, slower, and about 2-3x more susceptible to predation.  Which means THEY IN DANGER GIRRRLLL.

This disease was first “discovered” in Georgia and North Carolina in the late 90’s, so it’s actually relative new and completely understudied.  Which means once I jumped on this project my career ABSOLUTELY BLEW UP (in a good way).

I got a job as a biologist with Texas Parks and Wildlife’s Coastal Fisheries Division about two years ago, mostly because of the shrimp disease research I was doing in Virginia.  Since moving down to Texas, I’ve been in charge of two major shrimp disease monitoring projects across the entire Texas gulf coast (It takes 8 hours to drive the full length from Louisiana to Mexico).  We go out and collect samples from 7 major bays in Texas (Sabine Lake, Galveston Bay, East and West Matagorda Bay, Corpus Christi Bay, and Upper and Lower Laguna Madre)

I rely pretty heavily on our fisheries techs to collect samples for me since our coast is so expansive, but I do go out often on our local bay with my husband (he works at another local TPWD lab).  

Once we get shrimp, I isolate DNA from shrimp gill tissue, and then I use a really cool DNA fragment tissue sequencing method to see if the shrimp have H. lynni DNA or not.  DNA sequencing is just a matter of using DNA primers to go in and select a certain part of the ciliate genome that is unique and differentiated from shrimp DNA. DNA is just a sequence of proteins--adenine (A), thymine (T), guanine (G) and cytosine (C), and each species of animal/plant/bacteria have parts of their genome that have a unique ATGC pattern—that’s how we can differentiate species!

Once I know which shrimp are positive for black gill, we can determine if temperature, salinity, dissolved oxygen, location, or time of year have an effect on how much black gill we see in shrimp populations coast wide.

Now, I got asked to be on TPWD’s PBS show—so here’s a small segment to kind of streamline what I do.  Watch me be awkward on television.  

I’m just going to point out, I do not do lab work CSI style, in the dark.

So in addition to black gill, I’m beginning to look at other common shrimp diseases too (like the aforementioned White Spot Disease in the video).  Because of this, I got to go to a shrimp disease pathology course at the University of Arizona.  Why is a marine disease lab in Arizona you ask?  Because Arizona is not near any body of water, so they do not risk contamination.  Also, they tell me the Arizona sun is pretty good at disinfecting aquarium equipment. I got to learn new DNA sequencing methods and dip my toe into histology, which is basically sectioning shrimp samples and dying organs so you can see what is going on with an organism’s body.

(cross section of a healthy shrimp gill) 

Because of this, my TPWD coworkers and I are hopefully going to hop onto a big disease study with the University of Arizona and South Carolina’s Department of Natural Resources—but we are still waiting to hear back from the USDA to see if our study is going to be funded.  Fingers crossed.

In addition to the University of Arizona study, I’m working with Texas SeaGrant and commercial shrimpers to collect more samples in the Gulf of Mexico (think WAAAAAYYYY offshore, 70-100 miles offshore).  This is where all the big adult shrimp are, and I want to collect samples to see if adult shrimp are passing the disease to their offspring as their babies move inshore.  And from the looks of it, the adults have it to.

(one of my boat captains, who is out on the Gulf right now, sent me this picture.  Note the dark gills)

I’m sure I’ll have some more information for you all in the future as my studies progress, but for now, I’ll leave you with this:  The Texas Gulf Coast shrimp populations are infected with H. lynni—and at some of the highest levels in the country.  In the summer, upwards of 80% of shrimp can be infected in coastal Texas regions.  In addition, low salinity and high temperatures tend to increase disease prevalence as well, and this might be tied to climate change and warming waters, as well as salinity changes due to increased precipitation (due to climate change) and the rerouting of river flow.

(percentage of black gill positive shrimp across the Texas gulf coast from 2019--from a WIP manuscript of mine) 

Thanks for reading ya’ll, and as always, PLEASE do not hesitate to ask questions about my research.

[iamthekaijuking]

Which Spongebob Characters Would Vote for Trump masterpost

Last night while me and @denny-dinodesigns were talking and doodling, I brought up the topic of the legendary thread that was started by @c3po (I think? I could be wrong) discussing what members of the Spongebob cast would vote for Trump. At first we jokingly started asking what other Spongebob characters would vote for Trump, but it quickly spiraled into an hour long discussion where we started taking the debate with a degree of seriousness.

Here are our thoughts. (If there is a character we left out then it’s probably because we deemed they weren’t noteworthy enough, they weren’t sapient, or we simply forgot)

Spongebob: He’s too kind and would be appalled by someone who uses such vulgar language.

Patrick: Patrick is too dumb to vote and can’t even spell, but judging by his personality in the earlier seasons (and not the psychopathic one in the most recent seasons) he seems too kind hearted to vote for Trump anyway.

Sandy Cheeks: While one would think that she would vote Trump due to being from the south, she absolutely would not as she is a scientist receiving grants from academies to conduct research. Sandy is also an immigrant in Bikini Bottom, and she also beat the everloving shit out of Spongebob for saying sexist things. So she definitely would not vote for a man with a track record of being anti science, hating immigrants, and being sexist.

Squidward: Squidward is a minimum wage worker who’s anti capitalist, pro union, an artist, and a musician. Even if he is a bit defeatist, he would still vote against Trump.

Mr. Krabs: Mr. Krabs, while a pro capitalism monster, still worked hard to get where he is and his money grubbing schemes still require work on his part. He would not support a man who inherited money, thinks a million dollars is a small loan, and bankrupted himself several times. Krabs would think Trump is an insult to rich people everywhere.

Plankton: He doesn’t want competition taking over the world and a lot of Trump’s policies tend to harm small businesses such as the one Plankton owns.

Karen: Karen would be tired of all the bullshit going on in the American government and would either run for President herself, or hack into the pentagon and White House and take over herself.

Pearl: Pearl isn’t an adult and thus isn’t eligible to vote, but she comes across as an airhead and might not recognize the importance of voting anyway.

Gary: While Gary is a pet and can’t vote, he is one of the most intelligent characters and wouldn’t vote for Trump anyways.

Bubble Bass: Bubble Bass absolutely would vote for Trump as he loves making everyone else’s lives a living hell and humiliating them. He probably would also stan a fellow self entitled asshole like himself.

Squilliam Fancyson: Squilliam would also vote for Trump as not only is he a narcissist who loves humiliating people, but he’s part of the 1% and would benefit from the tax cuts for the rich Trump has put in place.

Larry the Lobster: Larry is a custodian and a medic, so he wouldn’t vote for someone who would cripple such services.

Mrs. Puff: Mrs. Puff wouldn’t vote for someone who would defund the education system, but she has a criminal record and I’m pretty sure she was also charged for attempted murder so she isn’t eligible to vote anyway.

Patchy the Pirate: Patchy was one that Denny and I scratched our heads over. We don’t think he would vote either way.

Potty the Parrot: Potty is a bit of a wild card, and Denny and I think they would run for President as a joke but end up gaining a lot of traction much like Deez Nuts in the 2016 presidential campaign.

French Narrator: We simply don’t know enough about him, but our guts tell us that he wouldn’t vote for Trump if our theory of him being an immigrant is correct.

Realistic Talking Fish: Same situation as the French Narrator; we don’t know enough about him.

The Flying Dutchman: Dutchman might not even understand the voting system or presidents as he’s from the 17th Century Golden Age (AKA the Dutch Golden Age). Either way he might not vote at all or probably isn’t even eligible to vote as he’s both a ghost and not an American citizen.

Kevin c Cucumber: Kevin comes across as an anti SJW incel who would vote Trump to “own the libs”.

The anchovies: The anchovies always seem to be following someone or are their cronies and thus rarely make their own decisions, so they might vote for the same person as whoever they’re following.

Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy: Barnacle Boy wouldn’t vote for Trump but Mermaid Man, being a senile idiot, might vote for Trump on accident or because he doesn’t know better.

King Neptune: Neptune is the ruler of his own kingdom and thus has no incentive to vote. Also isn’t an American citizen.

Princess Mindy: She’s also a political figure in her father’s kingdom and thus has no reason to vote, but she’s such a caring and kind figure that she wouldn’t vote for Trump anyways.

Harold and Margret SquarePants: Seeing as they raised Spongebob, they probably wouldn’t vote Trump for the same reasons as him.

Grandma SquarePants: She’s too kind to vote for someone so rude.

Fred AKA the “My Leg” character: Judging by the fact he spends a lot of time in the hospital, he likely wouldn’t vote for someone who would make the American healthcare system worse than it already is. On an adorable side note, he likes staying at the hospital because he’s in love with the nurse.

Harold: Harold would likely not vote Trump because he strikes us as the kind of guy who wouldn’t vote for a republican, since he canonically beat up a boomer (“how many times do we have to teach you this lesson old man!”) but he probably would vote democrat without realizing the atrocities they’ve committed as well.

Old Man Jenkins/Old Man Walker: Denny and I reached our decision without realizing that these characters are now two separate entities, so our choice only really applies to Old Man Walker. We think that, because he’s a senile idiot, he would probably vote for someone who isn’t even running for President. Denny thinks he’d vote for Mickey Mouse.

Dr. Gill Gilliam: He’s a doctor and thus wouldn’t vote for Trump.

Scooter: Scooter is sort of a stereotypical hippie California surfer, but regardless he seems like a nice enough guy and was kind enough in life to become an angel when he died. So he wouldn’t vote for Trump.

Tom: Tom, most well known for his crazy love for chocolate, is a rather violent guy. Denny and I aren’t sure who he’d vote for, but he definitely doesn’t treat minimum wage workers with respect.

Angry Jack: Angry Jack, despite his name, is actually a pretty calm person, and while we initially thought he would vote Trump due to running a business, we decided against it since Trump’s policies would harm small business owners like him.

Craig Mammalton: Craig wouldn’t respect someone who wears a fake tan. So no he wouldn’t vote for Trump.

Dirty Bubble: Dirty Bubble would definitely vote Trump to cause more suffering.

DootleBob: DootleBob is an agent of chaos and instead of voting he’d likely crash a candidate’s speech to cause mass hysteria.

Flats the Flounder: Judging by the fact that this grown ass adult is a bully who beats people up, he probably would vote for Trump.

Jim: Jim was the original fry cook for the Krusty Krab before Spongebob, and left because Mr. Krabs wouldn’t raise his paycheck. So he probably wouldn’t vote for Trump.

Man Ray: Man Ray is a wanted criminal who couldn’t vote even if he wanted to, but he probably wouldn’t vote for Trump anyways as Man Ray wants to take over the world and Trump is competition.

Sea Bear: It’s a non sapient creature so it can’t vote anyway.

Sergeant Sam Roderick: This intimidating and cruel goblin shark drill instructor strikes Denny and I as the kind of guy who would vote for Trump.

The Warden: Considering he loves his job as a warden at a prison that takes advantage of the fact that you can use arrested people as unpaid labor, he absolutely would vote for Trump.

Tattletale Strangler: He’s a criminal and thus can’t vote, but if he could he probably wouldn’t vote anyways. But if he did vote he’d probably vote Trump.

Dennis: Dennis is a hitman who kills people for a living. He would vote for Trump faster than he could impale a person on the cleats of his boots.

The Cyclops: Denny and I weren’t sure about this one. He runs a small business, but said business subsists off of harming the local ecosystem. We don’t know.

The biker gang: Denny and I don’t know about these guys either. They seem like the kind of people with a criminal record seeing as how they hate and beat up “bubble blowing babies”. So maybe they might hate the “soft liberals” but also consider themselves too tough to vote? They also seem to live in a place where the law can’t reach them and so some of them might have gotten away with murder.

Bubbles: Bubbles is a literal god and is thus above voting.

Blackjack SquarePants: Criminal record. Can’t vote.

Stanley SquarePants: Stanley would accidentally destroy the voting booth.

Captain Blue SquarePants: Former police officer. Definitely would vote for Trump.

Mama Krabs: Denny and I aren’t sure about her. She did father the pro capitalism Mr. Krabs, but she might consider voting to not be worth her time.

SpongeTron and PaTron: We’re unsure because we simply don’t know what the state of the world is like 2,000 years in the future. For all we know, America and maybe even countries in general might be a thing of the past.

Plankton’s family: While they are basically stereotypical rednecks (as wrong and rude as a stereotype as that is), they’re a very kind and tightly knit community who just want to help Plankton. However, they probably can’t vote anyways since a large majority of them are illiterate.

[americangodstalk]

I might have a theory to explain the “lobster tank smashed” in the novel.

Again - I know maybe Neil Gaiman simply put little random details as such without meaning anything by it, and just liked the poetic image of a lobster tank smashed... But I still want to try to give mythological meaning to it all, because I’m that big of a mythology nerd.

Now despite many of my researches I couldn’t find any god related to lobsters... BUT I recently came across something that might be a link to that... You see, in medieval times there was a strong belief in numerous sea monsters waiting for the boats - this belief was strong enough for said monsters to appear on nautical maps during the 16th and 17th century. Mermaid and sea pigs, monstrous whales and giant octopuses, sea snakes and sea monks... And one of these creature was the “Polypus”. Polypus was originally a term the Greek used to name octopuses, considering it a “fish with many legs”. But in the Medieval then Renaissance era, this term was used to designate a specific type of giant sea animal/monster - and while this monster was sometimes represented as an octopus, sometimes as a centipede, a much more common way to depict in on nautical cards was  by representing a giant lobster or a giant crayfish. 

In fact, digging a bit more, I noticed that if the Polypus was sometimes represented as a centipede, it might have been due to a confusion with a sea monster from Greek mythology - the Scolopendra (scolopendre being the scientific name of a centipede). The Skolopendra was described as a giant sea creature with webbed feet on its flanks, hairy nostrils and a crayfish flat tail. They were described as a “Ketos” (Ketos, Ceto, Cetus, a term used to refer in general to sea monsters but that also designated the mother of sea monsters, the old goddess Ceto) and nowadays it is considered that it was simply a misinterpretation of the Mysticeti, aka the Baleen whales. 

[missguomeiyun]

Homecookings [Apr. ed]

Hi friends~

Due to the home-cation during the 1st little bit of April, I actually had time to do more ‘extensive’ cooking/posts so the content in this post will be quite limited...

But here we go!

Good ol’ spaghetti + PC brand flatbread (the chicken one that I didn’t enjoy......)

This was an interesting snack. Have you tried shrimp crackers by Nongshim brand? This had similar vibes to that but thinner chips & a diff ‘taste’ bcos it’s fish-flavoured haha I got a bag for myself, & also gave a bag to the nieces so try. They did not like this! I thought it was okay; not my favourite but I finished it all anyway. It was my Penthouse snack :P

I don’t know why I thought this package of zucchinis was cute. ..

I have deonjang (Korean soy bean paste) soup with the zucchini, tofu, imitation lobster meat, & underneath that, there was also some napa cabbage. To add some extra flavour, I added gochu powder & some salted shrimp sauce.

Another zucchini in soup lunch.. . no, I’m not on a diet haha I actually had more of this soup in my pot; I just scooped out this much for the photo. For this soup, I had zucchini, tofu, imitation lobster meat as well as fish cake. I personally liked this one better than the previous. Some ppl may not like it bcos of the added fish cakes, making the soup “fishy” but I am a huge fan of the fish cakes! Paired it with some radish & injeolmi!

[where my injeolmi came from] This was from the small bakery section at the U of A location of Hmart. I haven’t had injeolmi for such a longgggg time.

Breakfast after a long stretch >.< I needed to reward myself haha

Jjajang-ddeokbokki. Instead of the traditional spicy version of ddeokbokki, I’ve been making this more often nowadays (aka the black bean sauce version). This has become one of my regular lunches bcos I’ve figured out a way to cook this so that when I microwave it the next day, the rice cakes are still chewy (not soaked/soggy). I have tried bringing the regular spicy ddeokbokki for lunch before & for some reason, it just. .. never worked out the way I wanted it to be. I’ve tried diff brands of rice cakes etc... I’ve experimented with it a handful of times. However, it seems to work with the black bean sauce o_O I’m not sure why. This is the day-off lunch version but basically if I’m making some for work lunch the next day, I actually undercook the rice cakes & save the extra sauce in a separate container. Before I head out to work, I pour the sauce into my rice cake-containing container (to prevent overnight soaking). & while I’m at work, I heat it up like.. . hardcore! For like 3mins... (bcos some microwaves at work are old & not very ‘strong’). The rice cakes are bouncy & while it’s being microwaved, they actually take up some of the liquid/sauce! SUCCESS!!!

Another drama snack~ This was my snack while I was watching the Kdrama “Cheat On Me, If You Can.” Not as good as Penthouse but I was also really into it & finished it in a few days. This snack was interesting- while the flavour was meh, I was actually in love with the shape/texture. It was rotini-shaped, & the texture was puffy!

Beef seasoning~

Yes, more zucchini. .. I legit ate all 3 by myself over the span of 4-5 days haha oh no, my mom used about half in a stir-fry one evening so I guess I ate 2.5 zucchinis. Anyway, I used the above beef seasoning for this soup that consisted of zucchini, napa cabbage, regular green cabbage, minute amount of onion. Yes, it was vegetarian.

Laksa vermicelli noodles. YES MORE ZUCCHINI! I swear this is the last one lol but I needed to use it up bcos prior to cracking open the saran wrap/packaging, it was actually sitting in the fridge for almost a week already so I needed to use it all up like fast! Anywho, I threw away the package of laksa soup base that I used here but it was by the Asian Home Gourmet brand. I used the entire package, diluted with half:half chicken broth & water for my soup. It was delicious! For toppings, I had my zucchini, napa cabbage, baby clams & a variety of fish balls.

This was interesting. I will likely make this again NOT bcos it was particularly “tasty”, but iuno. .. the combo of textures was just great! I had buttered toast, a single layer of yellow radish, mashed up imitation lobster meat (did not add anything to it), & then furikake. It was like crunchy & soft, & just, overall, a burst of diff flavours in one bite!

Korean fried chicken by MEEEEEEE~ I have gotten rid of the double-frying practice bcos it takes too long & too much effort. Now I do the wet-dry batter method, & the outcome is equally as crispy! ^^

If we buy these frozen lasagnas, it’s always the PC brand, but we have this Western Family brand this time.

Looks like this... o_O wasn’t impressed.. . Why is there so much ice!?

I don’t have a finished photo bcos it was so sad... why?

I used microwave method, & . .. it turned out to be such a big mess =(  it become so liquid-y & everything was just. .. melted down. I think it was bcos of the water content, plus the extra ice that dripped onto the pasta. Anyway, flavour was good but nothing crazy! Will be sticking to the PC brand :P

My version of mapo-tofu. I have satay sauce + bulgogi sauce, diced green cabbage, eggplant & tofu! Topped with a gochu powder~ YUM!

& now I wanna talk about my vaccine with you all~ if you’re not interested, check out my Etsy shop here instead! https://www.etsy.com/shop/OneOfAKo

Okay, so my vaccine story.. .

1st of all, a little bit of background in regards to my province’s C*vid situation .. . long story short, it’s NOT good. To be fair, I’m in-and-out of tuning in to the daily updates; I look once every few days &. .. yeah, it’s just NOT good! We are hitting record numbers; surpassing the worst numbers in the 2nd wave.. . I don’t get it >.< I’m not sure why the numbers are so high despite ppl are getting vaccinated *shrugs* but I think everyone should go get vaccinated if you are eligible to!

Right now, in this province, there are 2 routes of getting vaccinated: select pharmacies & via provincial health services.

When I was eligible to book (I’m in health care but not front line so I just got the eligibility this month!), I went thru the pharmacy options that were closest to me. Why? Bcos it was convenient by location. I read into it a little more, & realized that I’ll be placed on a general waiting list. I ended up signing myself up for 1 pharmacy, where the location was TBD until they actually confirm my appointment, which they say, could be weeks to months down the line! O_O In any case, I just left it as is bcos there was no way to cancel being on the wait list.

In the meantime, immediately after I did the pharmacy registration, I went on the AHS website. Did the questionnaire & got the ‘final page’, where they gave a date/time option with a 10minute timer running so you have 10 minutes to finalize your booking. Except when I hit “confirm”, the next page said, “this time has been taken”. So I had to go thru the whole process again. And again. I clicked the “confirm” 3 times, & finally got a date/time for my vaccination! YAY!

Went to my vaccination appointment ~10mins before my scheduled time. There was a "greeting” table, where I was required to change into a new (provided) medical mask. Then I was instructed to line up for the sign-in table, where the staff at the desk asked for my 2 pieces of ID. I was also given the vaccination record form. After that, I went into another line to actually enter the vaccination room. At my location, it was a small-ish room with about 10 vaccine administrators. There was a girl who was monitoring the “ppl flow” from the line to the vaccination station. A little more info was given by my administrator, & a final “do you want to get the vaccine today?”. The shot itself was short, & to me, painless. Then everyone had to move to a waiting room, where we had to wait around for 15mins to make sure we don’t get an allergic reaction. This room was the PROBLEM! It was SO small & spaces between chairs was only about a meter! It was stuffy in the mask AND in the room. I could FEEL it. It was very bad! & worse of all, the number of ppl who got their vaccines exceeded the number of ppl exiting the room, so when I was there in a chair, there were ppl standing along the wall & the room got even more crowded. This part was the worse part of the experience =/ 15mins done, & I was able to leave!

So yeah, glad to have the privilege to be vaccinated (about time!), but I don’t know why our numbers keep climbing >.< Cooperate, ppl!!!

[ubernoxa]

The Sip: A Modern Day GNR AU

Chapter 3: The BBQ

(Chapter 1) (Chapter 2)

“Is this the place?” Sandy asked me as we pulled up to the house I was at only this morning. The white exterior paired with the large black garage doors were the spitting image of the ones that I saw earlier today. The nerves of seeing Duff again quickly returned when we pulled into his rather spacious driveway.

“Yup, this was the place,” I replied as she parked next to a car that looked at least three times as expensive as Sandy’s.

“We got in the wrong business. We should have become rockstars,” Sandy’s eyes

“I have never been so nervous getting out of a car before in my life,” I joked back as I gently opened Sandy’s car door paying extra care to not hit the very expensive muscle car that she parked next to.

“God, I feel like such a peasant,” I couldn’t agree more with Sandy as I sent Duff a message that we made it. There was no way I was heading in there without knowing where he was. The place was most likely packed to the brim and the fewer awkward interactions I had, the better.

He quickly responded with instructions to head through the back gate which was thankfully unlocked.

The backyard was lined with trees, shrubs and a large fence for what I assumed were put there for privacy. A large pool sitting in the center filled with only a couple people was calling my name. Despite living in California I couldn’t remember the last time I went swimming.

“Wow this place is beautiful,” Sandy said as we walked through the backyard, and I couldn’t agree more. The grass was the greenest grass I had seen in a long time. To my surprise, the place wasn’t as packed as I expected. When we walked in I immediately saw Duff who was original by the grill chatting with Slash. The butterflies in my stomach swarmed into chaos as he walked over towards Sandy and I. Everything about him looked effortless. His blonde and brown hair looked barely styled, but still somehow managed to frame his face perfectly. He looked so causal as he walked over without a shirt on.

Don’t stare Alanah, don’t stare.

“Hey, glad you guys made it! Hopefully it wasn’t to bad of a drive. Want some beers?” I was about to say no due to the fact I was still hung over, but Sandy immediately interrupted me and said yes.

“Where is the bathroom?” I turned in panic towards Sandy was she spoke. She couldn’t just leave me alone with Duff! What if there is a like awkward silence or I say something stupid?

Once he gave her directions she whispered in my ear, “Go get him tigress.”

What the literal fuck. I love her to death, but what the fuck?

“What type of beer do ya want?”

“The alcoholic type,” the words left my mouth before my brain processed what I was about to say. Jesus Christ, he must think I’m such a weirdo.

I felt relief flow through me as he laughed and shook his head.

“Trust me, the only type of beer we have here is the alcoholic type,” his damn smirk shined again as he opened the cooler.

“Pick your poison,” my eyes darted from beer to beer trying to decide which one I should get. A purple tinted one caught my eye and I reached down to grab it.

“BlackBerry...interesting,” I looked at him and he still had his damn smirk on his face. I felt like he was a psychologist or something, studying me.

“Don’t mock it until you try it,” I shrugged before twisting the cap of and followed Duff to some chaise lounges.

“Feel free to keep your crap here, we have towels if you want to go for a swim. The water is actually heated which is kinda refreshing in the Fall. It’s a bitch in the summer though because you feel like a damn lobster being boiled when one of your band mates decides to leave the heat on overnight and doesn’t tell you,” As he spoke I placed my bag on the lounge and took my shirt off revealing the top piece of my bikini. No one else was swearing a shirt so why should I?

I definitly spent an hour or so digging through my dresser trying to decide which bikini to wear. I wasn’t trying to impress Duff, I just wanted to look good...I wanted to look good when Duff saw me...so maybe I was trying to impress him, but that doesn’t matter. I settled on this cheetah print one thanks to some advice from Sandy on how I shouldn’t look like a total slut in front of him just yet. Plus who doesn’t like a good animal print?

I felt his eyes on me as I took another sip of my beer and now it was my turn to smirk. So the rockstar was a fan of cheetah print? Good to know.

By now I assumed that Sandy had found someone else to occupy her time, probably someone of the male variety, so it was just me and Duff. Fuck.

“So..is this your place?” I asked him before taking another sip of my delicious beer. Who knew that alcohol could taste this good?

“Yup, it was my first big purchase!” I smiled at him as pride shot through his features. I figured this place must have been a huge upgrade from his last place.

“Well it is very very nice and puts Sandy’s and my place to absolute shame,” I made hand gestures in attempt to dramaticise how much nice his place was.

“So what does one do to have a not as nice place to live,” his playful tone caught me off guard.

“Well you saw my Instagram page when you DMed me, so you know the answer to that,” If he was going to play, I was going to tease right back.

“Social media influencer is one of the broadest job titles in the world,” he laughed back making my heart skip a beat. I loved his contagious laugh.

“Hmm and you didn’t look at ANY of my photos or click the link in my bio?” I continued my teasing efforts making sure that a smile stayed on his face.

“Are you asking if I stalked you on social media?” His voice was almost a whisper as he spoke. I could barely hear him above the music that filled his backyard.

“Now that’s not fair I asked you a question first,” I finished my drink placing it down on the ground next to me as I spoke.

He laughed again, and asked another question I assume to avoid answering mine,”what do I do?”

“Okay, there is no way in hell knowing what you do is comparable to you knowing what I do,” I laughed back at him. He definitly stalked me on Instagram. I knew it because he accidentally liked one of my photos from a couple months back. Was he too proud to admit it?

“What would you define as what you do then, just pretend we live in a world without social media,” whenever he spoke, his smile never faltered. I thanked God for the beer that calmed my nerves.

“Well that sounds like a scary world, Rockstar,” I teased back. It would mostly be a scary would because I would be unemployed but that is besides the point.

“Ohh so my name is Rockstar now?”

“Why yes it is Mr Rockstar!”

“Alright YouTuber,” he teased back before finishing off his own beer.

“So you did look,” I smiled as he finally admitted it.

“Prove it!” He challenged back.

“You just did,” I winked before standing up and looking around for somewhere to place my beer.

“Do you remember meeting the guys last night,” he raised an eyebrow at me as I shook my head not. If I was being honest I remembered jack shit from last night.

“Come on then, let’s go meet the guys,” he grabbed my hand and I followed him over to where Steven was chatting up some girl.

“Stevie, this is Alanah from last night,” I couldn’t help but smile as he pulled me in for a hug.

“How could I forget my karaoke partner?” He cheered earning some laughter from Duff. It was clear that he was trying to hide it but horribly failed.

“Karaoke?” Dear god, how much of a fool did I make myself out to be.

“Yeah, is recommend leaving the musical stuff to the professional, and sticking to your day job,” Duff teased back.

“What’s your day job?” The girl next to Stevie asked.

“I don’t know Duff aka Social media stalker, what is my job?” I turned towards Duff unable to hid my smirk. He was going to admit that he stalked me on social media. It was only a question of when.

“Well Duff that’s another thing us band mates got in common,” I turned towards Stevie to glare at him for him ruining my setup to making him admit he stalked me, but I couldn’t. His smile was too contagious.

“Well I hope you’re better at it than him. This newbie here accidentally liked a picture of mine from a few months ago?” I looked back at him to see him laughing and shaking his head.

“If you knew, why did you want me to admit it?”

“I like watching you squirm,” it wasn’t a lie. It was kinda funny to see the big famous badass rockstar squirm.

“You down for shot hill tonight?” Stevie asked before Duff and I were going to leave to probably go meet someone else I had completely forgotten about.

“You know that ain’t a question. We can use the plastic ones in the basement. I actually bought them for this. I don’t want to be cleaning up glass again. Make sure to tell Izzy and Axl. They have to chose which one of them is setting the game up,” Duff replied before we left. What the hell was shot hill. Did they just stack a bunch of shots on a hill and drink them?

“Shot hill?” I quizzed Duff before we met another one of his bandmates.

“It’s a game of shots, just make sure when we play it you’re fully dressed because we will probably be on a team together,” I felt him quickly look me up and down, but before I could make a sarcastic remark back I heard someone yell that dinner was ready. I guess my questions will have to wait.

[help-on-four-paws]

How I Help My Girl as a Medical Alert and Response Dog

To read the original blog post, click here.

TW: self-harm mention

This photo was taken while I was just finishing up doing Deep Pressure Therapy for my girl. I moved to her legs because her body had already started responding to the pressure I'd been putting on her chest earlier, so she just needed some final grounding before this episode passed. You can see from my face how seriously I take my job!

A Medical Alert Service Dog performs a trained behaviour to indicate that their handler is about to have or is currently having a medical episode,* and a Medical Response Service Dog helps a handler who has a medical disability.  Both types of Service Dogs can assist with a range of medical conditions, from epilepsy to type 1 diabetes, and from postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome to narcolepsy, and everything in between.  It's not uncommon for a dog who is a Medical Response Service Dog to also be a Medical Alert Service Dog, because we dogs are perceptive creatures with strong noses and will often pick up on our handler's changes in body chemistry.  Remember, though, that a Service Dog under the ADA must be "individually trained" in the task(s) that they perform for their disabled handler.  This means that a dog who performs a natural medical alert does not qualify as a Service Dog in the US unless that alert is reinforced by the handler (or a trainer) since the Service Dog must be "trained to take a specific action" under the ADA.  As a Service Dog for my girl, I am both a Medical Alert and Medical Response Service Dog because I perform tasks both that alert her to a medical episode and that are in response to medical episodes.

Because my girl has such a broad range of symptoms, I also have a variety of alert behaviours so that I can tell her exactly what's going on with her body.

As I explained in my post about my Psychiatric Service Dog tasks, I alert my girl to rising anxiety and incoming panic attacks through a variety of her body's signals.  One of the very first tasks I learned to help my girl was pawing with increasing intensity in order to interrupt her when she starts nervous-scratching or picking at herself.  Her anxiety causes her to do this unknowingly, often to the point where she bleeds, and since the scabs that form become itchy, the cycle can continue quite easily -- so the trick is interrupting the cycle so that she can catch herself before she starts bleeding, which is exactly what I do!  This pawing also acts as an anxiety alert because the scratching indicates that her anxiety is rising close to the point of "no return."  I can also alert to increasing heart rate or elevated cortisol as signs that her anxiety is rising, as well as to her anxious "hand flapping" that she does as a physical anxiety tic, and I use a paw for these as well so that all anxiety alerts are clumped together into one behaviour.

A couple years ago, my girl added a hypoglycemia alert to my repertoire of tasks.  Her GI issues are understandably the (most likely) culprit of her drops in blood sugar, which itself causes an assortment of un-fun symptoms, but the situation is even more nuanced than that: thanks to my girl's chronic nausea, she often doesn't want to eat, but she has to be careful because blood sugar dipping too low can be a trigger for her migraines, which can last multiple days.  As you can imagine, my girl is grateful for any kind of preventative action!  My hypoglycemia alert can tell her when she absolutely needs to push past her nausea, even if eating causes its own form of discomfort, because that discomfort is the lesser of the two potential evils.  I currently alert with a nose "boop" when her meter reads 80 mg/dL or lower.  Sometimes I do a "chin rest" with a serious look on my face, and although this is my default "there's something wrong with you but I'm not formally trained to alert to it" behaviour, my girl has learned that sometimes I do this instead of a nose boop .  My girl hasn't yet figured out if this is because her low blood sugar stems from two different causes, and since I'm a dog, I can't really communicate my reasoning to her.  For the time being, we're treating it as a training glitch, and she keeps reinforcing the "boop" whenever I offer the "chin rest" instead.  When I learned my hypoglycemia alert, I also learned the Breath Check command, where my girl leans down so I can sniff her breath better.  This behaviour helps reassure my girl that my alert was a true alert and not just an accidental nose boop, because if I still give the nose boop after a Breath Check, then my girl knows to definitely check her blood sugar.

If you've read this far, you've already learned that my girl has migraines, and they most likely have a genetic component to them because they run in her family.  Although my girl knows some triggers for her migraines -- pressure changes due to thunderstorms, low blood sugar -- these migraines are tricksters and don't always let her know what causes them.  That's where I can help!  I have a migraine alert where I gently "mouth" my girl on the hand in order to let her that a migraine is coming on.  This behaviour lets her know to take her migraine medication, which can help lessen the impact and also duration of the migraine (however, it's not perfect and sometimes her migraines ignore medication completely).  We haven't figured out a way for me to tell my girl how long her migraine is going to last, since it would be helpful to know if one is going to last 9 days or only a few hours, but hey, at least I can sometimes give her a bit of warning and that's better than nothing!

My newest medical alert (that I'm still perfecting, by the way) is to my girl's fatigue crashes.  For a period of time after my girl exerts herself either physically or mentally, even to an extent that most normal people would consider "minor," she experiences a major energy crash, often accompanied by a "flare up" of other symptoms like chronic pain, anxiety, overstimulation (aka lots and lots of tears), or headaches and even her migraines.  With these crashes, she can often barley think coherently, let alone function like a normal person, and even walking can sometimes feel like an insurmountable feat.  When I give her an alert to an impending fatigue crash, I'm letting her know that she's going down fast so she needs to get herself ready for that, whether it's getting water to put beside her bed, finding the nearest dark and quiet space, or emailing someone to cancel plans while she still has the brain power to do so.  Anyone who knows my girl knows that her face has it's own "alert" -- her cheeks turn lobster-red immediately before a fatigue crash.  However, my alerts help for two main reasons: first, fatigue crash-to-lobster face isn't a 1:1 ratio and my girl can crash without lobster-ing, and second, fatigue crashes can happen in a time frame ranging from immediately after an exertion to a day or so after doing the exertion.  My absence of an alert reassures my girl that she has at least a little more time to live her life normally, so my alerts offer her some predictability, which is nice to have when your chronic illness is largely unpredictable.

I want to take a moment to note that my medical alerts vary in how good I am at performing them.  Medical alerting has probably been my biggest training struggle, so my girl and I still practice with scent samples quite frequently (and if you want to learn how I was taught to alert to medical episodes, click here).

If I alert my girl to her rising anxiety or an impending panic attack, one of the ways she can respond to that alert is by asking me to perform Deep Pressure Therapy (DPT), which is a form of firm sensory input that results in a calming effect for the body.  I do DPT for my girl by lying on her chest preferably, especially because it forces her to take deep breaths instead of hyperventilating, but I can also lie across her legs if we're not in a situation where she can lie down fully.   My body weight acts to quiet her sympathetic nervous system, which is responsible for her "fight or flight" response, and instead activates her parasypathetic nervous system, which is responsible for her "rest and digest" response and therefore is associated with decreased anxiety.  As a result, her panic symptoms decrease, and she can eventually continue her life as normal.  DPT may look like "just cuddling," but - scientifically - it's so much more!  I can also do deep pressure therapy for her chronic pain, most often my girl's hips.  My body heat acts like a hot water bottle to soothe her joints.

When my girl has one of her migraines, I can respond by doing forward momentum pulling, where I act like a dog-sized tugboat by pulling into my harness.  Many people think of migraines as "just a headache," but migraines are actually a neurological problem.  My girl's migraines "scramble" her brain and make it short-circuit on her, even if she has taken medication to get rid of the pain.  Navigation can be a little tricky with a brain that's not cooperating, especially in a crowded area.  Add in light sensitivity due to the migraine and navigation can be just downright difficult.  But that's where I can help!  Because my forward momentum pulling as a guiding aspect to it, I make sure that my girl gets safely where she needs to go.  She can just close her eyes against the light if need be, and I'll weave around people and other moving obstacles as needed.  The pulling aspect of this task also helps with my girl's balance, which is often thrown off by her brain's migraine "scrambling."  I know how to find a few locations, lead her to a handful of important people in her life, and follow an indicated person.  Sometimes words are tricky when my girl has a migraine and she'll trip over her words while trying to tell me where to go or what to do, but luckily I know her well enough after four years of being her pup that I can interpret her vague gesturing pretty accurately.

Of course, I can also perform forward momentum pulling when my girl's fatigue is flaring, even if I often do it to save her energy.  When I pull her along, she doesn't use quite as much energy while walking and therefore doesn't get tired as quickly as she would walking on her own.  Of course, the energy saved isn't vast, but every little erg of energy is necessary when you start your day short on spoons.  When I do forward momentum pulling for my girl when she's experiencing fatigue, it can make a huge difference in whether or not she can accomplish a task.

Moving to a home with more space has meant that I've been able to expand my tasks in migraine response.  Over the course of the past year, I've learned how to open doors using a special tug, as well as closing them with my nose.  I have slowly begun learning how to turn light switches on and off all by myself.  Being able to close doors and turn off the lights is helpful for my girl's migraines because she can get very light and sound sensitive.  However, the pounding in her head gets worse with any small movement, so if I can save her getting out of bed, I prevent her from having to endure that pain.  Similarly, I can do both of these tasks when my girl is having a high pain or fatigue day and appreciates whenever I can save her from doing even small actions, like when I help her undress at night.

Opening and closing doors has led to another task that I'm currently working on: retrieving a bottle of ginger ale from a specific spot in the fridge.  In order to complete this task, I need to know how to open the fridge with a tug, grab the drink in its special holder (since its glass and therefore slippery), deliver the bottle to my girl in another room, and then return to close the fridge.  Assuming I'm in my girl's bedroom with her, I would also have to open and close her bedroom door as well.  That's a lot for a pup to remember to do!  It's taking a lot of practice (and many treats!), but I'm starting to learn what I need to do.  Once I've perfected this task, I'll be able to respond to my girl's bouts of bad nausea by bringing her a bottle of ginger ale.

You may have noticed that there's a lot of overlap between my psychiatric tasks, my mobility tasks, and my medical alert/response tasks.  One symptom can be helped by many tasks, and one task can simultaneously help many symptoms.  My girl's health issues are often interconnected and have similar symptoms, so it makes sense that my tasks can overlap to help multiple aspects of her health.  I have a lot of aspects of my job, it's true, but I'm a pup that needs a job and needs to be mentally stimulated -- my foster mom knew this when she was trying to find me a fur-ever home, and so far, thanks to my girl's ever-fluctuating symptoms, there's been no shortage of work for me to do in this fur-ever home.  And as a bonus, I get paid with fetch, and that's a pretty good trade-off in my opinion!

* Some people classify Medical Alert Dogs as only those dogs who alert their handlers before a medical event occurs, but we're including dogs who alert both before an episode and during episode (e.g. since dogs who assist diabetics are usually called Diabetic Alert Dogs, even though most of the time, they're alerting to a handler's already high or low blood sugar level - although some also alert to rapidly rising or rapidly lowering blood sugar levels).

If you missed Part 1 of this series about how I help my girl as a Psychiatric Service Dog, click here.  And if you missed Part 2 of this series about how I help my girl as a Mobility Service Dog, click here.

[banavalope]

I love all of your troll ocs! I was wondering if you ever thought of making some more?? :0

you fool. you absolute buffoon. these are my activation words.

honestly i actually have like… two seadwellers i never talked about because years ago i never bothered to flesh them out. I’ve also got kidcestors for The Gang that i love to bits and also have never talked about much, and i’d love to make more bc its just… so fun and customizable.

Anyway bold and foolish of you to make the mistake of asking this expecting me to not doodle & talk about eight individual fantrolls so here’s all of that cool information under a nifty little read more

please look at my good kids:

Ulyxes Romeda’s a violet blood and almost 8 sweeps old. This right here’s a sweet boy, he loves muscle theater and ancient battle history involving heroes that were probably fake but they were REALLY heroic and that’s!!! What he loves!!!!! He’s adventurous and positive, the kind of guy with an infectious happy attitude, people typically get along with Ulyxes and feel safe around him. He’s definitely not okay with the power structure on Alternia and WANTS to lead a revolution, he’s got the fire in him to change the way things are around him, but he’s dense, and not a big details kind of person so he’s not really gonna be a Leader anytime soon, but a bold hero in a blaze of glory in some way, probably absolutely.

This boi loves to rough house, he luv gettin into scraps with things BIGGER and STRONGER than him!! He’s so strong, he hasn’t found a big scary thing yet that he wasn’t able to toss. Good child. One of his hopes is to fight with Audrit to see which one of them is stronger, he holds Aud in high regard. Audrit thinks Ulyxes is really… fucking dumb, but the guy is nice and a great hand when you need one so, like, who’s he to judge.

His quirk is pretty uncreative, he “T4lks with gre4t 2e4l! =:D” replacing Z’s and A’s with 2’s and 4’s, and overusing emotes bc he’s an expressive boy.

His title is the Prince of Doom and his lusus is a bullfrog, a frog with a bullshark’s head and gills.

Calgia Atlais is either a violet blood or, if you have fun good times like I do and roll hard in your life, a fuschia blood and an heiress in line for the throne. She’s Ulyxes best friend and Audrit’s FLARP partner. Callie has a problem with being misunderstood in her intentions by people, the way she words things oftentimes denotes the wrong connotations. Maybe it’s because of her high social status, people just go into conversation with her expecting a superior and cold attitude that they just allow it to be their assumption of her without thinking any deeper into it. She gets frustrated easily by it, but she doesn’t have this problem with Ulyxes or Audrit though.

She’s got a heavy belief and investment in witchcraft and practices a sort of mix and match of wicca. Callie casts incantations and makes potions for the protection of her friends - especially Ulyxes with his rebellious attitude that’s dangerous to have - though whether her “spells” really DO anything is questionable. The results always vary, but she’s pretty sure she’s doing something good.

Arpegi particularly can’t stand Cal, because she’s got it in her head that Callie is trying to “steal” Ulyxes away from her - RP is convinced he’s supposed to be the Prince that saves her :Y - but the unfortunate thing is Callie has a huge flushcrush on Arpegi, and she really can’t seem to just tell her how she actually feels.

She “whisp3rs in the 14ngu4g3 0f th3 f0rg0tt3n c0v3n” by which I mean, the assigned asteroid numbers of Pluto, 134340.

Her title is Witch of Rage and her lusus - depending on what you subscribe to with fuchsias - is a clobster. a crab lobster with lots of claws that it fucking punches with.

*wrings my little hands* And then there’s dancestors…….. hueheueuhe

Artmis “But my friends call me Arttie” Mazdak is my fucking hero and I love him so much. God. He’s 9 sweeps old and grew up on an island with a small community of other islanders of varying bloodcasts and he dreamed of being out at sea, exploring a world he literally knows nothing about. He’s really dorky, for someone so charismatic and seemingly sure of himself he’s got some shakey self esteem and suffers sometimes in putting real faith in himself. Arttie and Audrit are a lot alike in their code of conduct, if they aren’t anything alike in personality: he has deep and unfaltering loyalty to his friends, isn’t one to question someones close held beliefs, and will without a doubt go to any means or lay down his own life for the greater good. Eyes on the prize for the benefit of others. The Mazdak boys are all about truth, justice,,,, and zestiness…….

Arttie builds boats hoping to get off his boring ass island and go be a real adventurer, he knows everything there is to know about navigation and always seems to find the best route to take even when he’s lost as shit, though “best” doesn’t always mean “right”, he got himself stranded once in the middle of the sea, but he met his flushcrush that way so WORKED OUT FOR HIM :Y

Anyway Art’s quirk is sort of particular compared to everyone’s. Basically though, he’s “Not tryin to brag or nofin> but ain’t nobody as exshiptional at knowin directions as him> an he’d be happy to kelp if he can*” this boy loves nautical wordplay and has an accent that makes him sound stupid (hes not stupid).

Jesus christ I love Arttie, i dont care that trolls dont have families he’s audrit’s big fucking brother and they love each other so much and hes so proud of his liTTLE BRO. ARGH.

His title is Mage of Hope and his Alternian counterpart is the Awakened Stargate, a famous historical figure who helped make important progress with intergalactic travel and laid the foundation for ethical “debates”, aka philoseviscery AKA “if your opinion is majority voted as bullshit you die”. He was secretly a passionate revolutionist and used his high social status to liberate lowblooded prisoners to freedom, taking them and himself to an unknown galaxy via an advanced starship he built. a legend as a boy and a man.

Fionah Trebol is Artmis’ kismesis, she’s 8 sweeps and a very trim and proper lady. Her soul dedication is in being a Tutor of Etiquette, she’s got no sense of humor and finds everything about Arttie to be a personal offense to everything she stands for. Disgusting.

Fionah is a stickler for rules and regulation, she keeps a tight schedule that seems to make everything around her bend to her will and keep to her rhythm. Things cower before her unreadable aura, which she loves, but Artmis doesn’t, which she hates.

She’s a private person in her beliefs, but she has some pretty strong ones. Religeon is a touchy topic and it would be rude manners to discuss it so openly, is her stance on the matter. Nobody bothers.

A cool fact: she has a trick weapon in the form of the strife specibus “hairclipkind”, she has a clip for the band at the end of her braid that turns into an axehead, and she wails it around like a flying guillotine. When you need some tough love.

She “~speaks QUITE LOUDLY and with a GR& SENSE OF &UTHORITY~ even if it RE&LLY ISN’T NECESS&RY~”. So she basically emphasizes her sentences where she doesn’t need to and replaces capital A’s (or “and” sounds) with &, all punctuation with ~’s

Her title’s Bard of Breath and her Alternian counterpart is the Lyricist, damned to a lifetime locked away in a sky high prison because her hypnotic voice would draw seadwellers to land where marauders would then jump them.

Kertez “Kurtis” Romeda is also my favorite child??? Next to Artmis???? He’s also 9 sweeps and is just. A Moron. He’s sporty, kind of like a typical jock hangin out with THE BOYS. Ruff about his turf, likes to surf, is a jerk. Kurt is extremely nihilistic and kind of rude, he’s spoiled so he sees himself as being above everyone else, even people in his own caste, but he’s private about his superiority complex which is… not better, but I guess he at least keeps it to himself? It certainly shows but he doesn’t rub his high opinion on himself in the face of others, not actively anyway.

Kertez is the reason Arttie got out of a bad situation, when Art stranded himself Kurt ended up finding him and helped him back to shore (degrading him the whole way). He REALLY thinks Art is out of his fucking mind and also thinks the nautical puns are lame, but he’s got a big gay secret crush on him anyway the fucking idiot. He’s so enamoured, his type is thick and cheesy.Artmis has gotten all their friends to think Kertez’s name is Kurtis because he heard him wrong when they met, and Kertez just… never corrected him.

He’s “4 little le22 enthu2i42tic 4bout being here, if you*re hone2tly wondering.”

He’s an Heir of Doom and his Alternian counterpart is the Achillan Watchman, who was in charge of guarding the Lyricist specifically. He disagreed with the Empress and in conjunction with the Stargate, helped free the Lyricist and thousands of other prisoners at the expense of his own life and reputation. He took the fall for the Stargate so his work wouldnt be wiped from history due to the betrayal.

Etheus and Isyfus Appate are younger, they’re like 7.5 sweeps, and unlike their descendants they aren’t attached at the horn, but they did hatch from the same egg and regard each other as two halves of the same whole person. Etheus acts as the mind and Isyfus takes over matters of the heart. He’s also the eyes of the operation, because Etheus was born blind.

They use their psychic abilities to help people struggling emotionally and are much kinder than their counterparts. They both offer phenomenal advice to due with personal growth and finding your inner self. Etheus and Isyfus claim they can commune with the past lives of an individual and doing so is part of their schtick.

On their own, Etheus doesn’t like to interact with anyone. They speak almost primarily through or with their brother, so doing so on their own is difficult and as a result they don’t have any close friends outside of Isyfus. They’re not extremely confident operating as a single unit, very much like their descendant. Out of selfishness, really, they don’t tell their brother that their spacial awareness is well enough that they can actually “"see”“ just fine without him.

Isyfus actually gets really exhausted operating as his other’s caretaker, he’s kind of a downer when he’s on his own and doesn’t have it in him to really give himself emotionally to anyone when he’s finally got time to himself to recharge. He’ll take long naps, either to try and get some energy back or to escape his other for a bit. He loves them, he really does, but it’s trying.

Etheus “doesn’t lyke takyng anyythyng from theyr brother yt myght make hym xpset”, and Isyfus “Ys happx to extend the same kyndness bx beyng juust as couurteous.” However “They both lYke to share, jUst when Yt reallY coUnts.”

Their titles are Maid of Space (Etheus) and Sylph of Time (Isyfus) and their Alternian counterparts were the Banyshed Apostyles - enslaved clairvoyants that predicted the coming of a prophet adopted in trust by the Empress’ higher court, using that trust to perform an act of Ultimate Betrayal. Their prediction wasn’t appreciated, so they were abandoned like garbage, and later down the line it was assumed the prophet was the Watchman.

LAAAAASTLY is Megera Atlais who is like, the least fleshed out of these losers because I like Calgia more than her lmao. A lot of her info is subject to change i think, but she’s 9 sweeps and very open and loud about her opinions and thoughts, so immediately everybody knows what she’s about. She loves juicy gossip and runs a cybernews blog about Big Internet Celebs for the express purpose of being a dickhead and spreading rumors.

She’s a nuisance to Kertez, they don’t get along very well but still stick to each other, she’s a lot like a little sister is to their older sibling. The only reason Kertez doesn’t just stop. Interacting with her, since she’s sort of toxic to his own sense of self worth, is because he knows at least a bit of her brash personality is all a front to keep people from picking on her relentlessly. She figures if she’s the first one to talk some shit then it makes her invincible to what anyone else says, and people will avoid getting on her bad side. It’s not great or healthy and Kurt feels pretty fucking sorry for her, but he ain’t her moirail so it’s not really his problem ykno.

Her quirk is to “talk mad shit o)+n anyo)+ne We want”, her O’s are replaced with o)+ and she uses royal We/Us (capitalized) in reference to herself instead of I’s and Me’s

Her title is Page of Rage and her Alternian counterpart was an Empress who lived hard and fast but not long, only long enough to have a solid reign of terror. She fucking hated lowbloods and wanted to keep them all in chains if she could, like most empresses so she wasn’t anyone special. She was dethroned after the Stargate rebellion destroyed her will and another heiress was able to take her life in her moment of weakness. She’s a very forgotten ruler.

anyway thanks for coming to my ted talk.

[stingray-stories]

Day 22 7/19/2021

Hello people of the blog-verse.

Today was super super chill. In the morning, Ben went out with the Cocos crew to do a bird survey on the refuge (I will get an opportunity later in the week since they can only take one of us) so I did some reading and finished some notes on bird species, plant species, and a little on our mosquito project. When Ben got back, we sent out our weekly report and then headed to lunch. I had wayyyyy too much to eat. As we were walking in the galley, we smelled something very very yummy. Chocolate chip cookies! And Mollie was so kind and gave us some raw cookie dough to eat. What a healthy lunch! I also had a little breakfast burrito and some coconut chia pudding with granola and peanut butter. I was soooo stuffed after omg. I just got too excited in all my hunger. After lunch, I had a little time to settle my tum tum. In the afternoon, Ben and I worked on the smart shell project which ended up having a lot of issues unfortunately. What we were testing was the satellite functionality in different areas of coverage (no coverage, a little overage, and lots of trees). The technology itself is pretty basic: a GPS tracker is connected to a super small motherboard (I think that’s the correct term) and then that connects to a battery. Whenever we want to log coordinates we plug in the battery and let it run for awhile. Anywayyyys, the big issue was that no data was pulling and since we have to let it run for at least 5 minutes, it’s time intensive to trouble shoot and sort out the issues. We ended up spending the whole afternoon trying to figure it out and we think the GPS may not be good enough to get through the thick tree canopy. However, we are still in the process of working through it so we are hopeful.

At the end of the work day, I did a workout before dinner which was not the best idea but I woke up later than usual in the morning and didn’t have enough time. It was nice to get a workout in but I was very hot and sweaty for dinner which wasn’t ideal. We also had homemade pizza for dinner which was sooooo fabulous but it felt funny eating that after a tough workout. Once I had cooled off, though, I could finally enjoy the pizza and it was soooooo good! Best homemade pizza ever (sorry dad! I haven’t eaten enough of yours and Marsha is Italian so she has the genes for greatness). We also had a really yummy kale salad and I realized how much I miss kale. It’s just so good. In the evening, I rinsed off and worked on the updated map. Hopefully you like it! Then we went out to explore the flats at North beach for critters. I saw a super small and cute banded snake eel, some gorgeous cowries, blennies that were being funny and just chilling out of the water on the rocks, and then as we were headed back we saw a painted spiny lobster. It had the craziest antennae and was soooooo colorful. It was a really nice way to end the day! We did learn the next day that we aren’t technically allowed to walk the flats at night due to protecting the habitat, but at least we got one night in hehe!! After that I headed to bed for sleepy time.

First photo: me on the runway doing science aka collecting the wind data. Second: a crazy cool massive Hernandia tree. It’s defining feature is heart shaped leaves with pink accents. It’s one of my favorites!

[babbushka]

I do too! But no one in my family does, so it’s always on my to find places and activities. Which is great because I can drag them to do whatever I want aka walk and go to museums all day long 😎

Oh nice!! Yes, I am definitely the trip planner of the family, I make the itineraries, I book the flights, and the hotels lol. And I get so cranky if we don't stick to the plan!! Like I did not work this hard for you guys to do your own thing, you know? lol

This trip is different in that we're staying with family (the point of the trip is to see them and catch up because we couldn't due to covid), so I'm glad that I don't have to worry about anything other than if I'm going to have lobster for lunch or dinner lol