#They're fun to pick up especially if you can spot them under the sand

[cutthroatchorus]

Hey @beingcuteismything someone else wrote about moon snails before I could!

I studied predation rate and preference (do they exhibit a preference for native clam species over commercially farmed introduced clam species?) for my final project.

And then the middle school kids saw our moon snails mating in the touch tank, as I have mentioned.

I saw you reblogged a moon sail, have you ever posted about their egg cases? I visited the beach one time in Washington during a super low ride and saw a lot of them and even a whole moon snail!! We didn't touch it but it was so darn cool.

no, but I HAVE talked about their murderous tendencies!

so if you live on the cascadian coast, you may have found shells with weirdly precise holes in them that look like they were bored by a rogue etsy seller with a dremmel:

well tldr, moon snail done it.

see, moon snails are predatory! they feed entirely on other snails and bivalves like clams, which they kill by rasping a hole through their shell with an extendible mouthpart called a radula that resembles an extendible chainsaw, then injecting it with a digestive enzyme and slurping up the resulting ex-animal soup.

the entire process takes about five days! talk about a way to go.

not bad for an animal that looks like a deflated bike tire under a croissant!

(maybe don't pick them up though)

[theamityelf]

Instead of the beach, they meet at the hotel, to avoid losing their kouhais in the ocean or sand. It wouldn't hurt to have lunch, anyway.

"A four-inch-tall Olympic swimmer gorging herself on a quarter of a donut," Teruteru marvels. He's at a table with Akane, Sonia, and Mahiru– and of course, all of the miniature Ultimates they're caring for.

Akane lowers her head to hear her kouhai's chittering voice, then lifts it again to say, "She wants you to stop starin'. Where's yours, anyway? You lose him?"

"Oh, he hid under my hat while I was cooking; he didn't like the smoke. I think he fell asleep up there."

"Aren'tcha worried he'll run out of air or somethin'?"

Teruteru lifts his hat to take a slumbering Yasuhiro and place him on the tabletop. The movement appears to startle him awake. (And who can blame him.)

"Hifumi," Mahiru chides, picking up her kouhai and turning him around. "She said to stop staring!"

At another table, Hajime sits with Nagito, Kazuichi, and Nekomaru.

"Aww. Are you making friends?" Nagito says.

His little brown-haired kouhai, Makoto, has been especially social with the others. Based on the tentatively positive reaction of Kazuichi's sheepish kouhai, Makoto seems to be a nice guy. He even pries a bit of conversation out of Kyoko, who Hajime has observed to be pretty unforthcoming.

"This is weird, right?" Hajime says, pulling Nagito's gaze away from fondly watching the tiny Ultimates interact. "I feel like we've moved past how weird this is pretty quickly."

"Check this out," Kazuichi says, taking out a little gadget he's been working on. "This motor is going to power the door to Chihiro's terrarium."

"Her terrarium is going to have an electric door?"

"Amazing!" Nagito says. "It's going to be so cool to see what everyone comes up with."

"This is weird," Hajime murmurs again.

Chiaki sits with Peko, Hiyoko, and Ibuki.

"What do you mean you don't want candy?" Hiyoko protests.

Tiny Sakura points to the chicken on Peko's plate.

"Hey, I'm in charge! I set the menu around here."

Sakura walks closer and says something that Hiyoko bends down to hear.

"Ugh! Fine." Hiyoko gets up to grab Sakura some real food.

"We have a runaway!" Ibuki warns, pointing at Celeste, who is strolling away while Chiaki is focused on a game she's playing.

"Hey hey," Chiaki says mildly, picking Celeste up and holding her close to her ear. "Where are you going?" A short pause, listening. "Oh. You don't like watching me game? That might be a problem for our co-op compatibility..."

"There. Happy?" Hiyoko demands, sitting back down with a new plate.

Sakura says something back.

"You're welcome." Hiyoko is trying to pout, but she's blushing a lot.

"Byakuya" sits with Gundham and Mikan, and Fuyuhiko stands off to the side.

Gundham has been having a harder time managing his kouhai than most, since there aren't a lot of spots on his person that he can safely keep a small person that aren't already inhabited by hamsters. He's been settling for letting her stand on the palm of his hand at all times, though a brief moment where he had to set her on his shoulder so he could bring his food to the table with both hands resulted in her sneezing from the hamster hair, and that was a weird couple of minutes before she sneezed again and seemed to calm down.

(They're all given information on their kouhais, so Gundham actually knows what happened there, but he doesn't explain it to anyone else.)

Now, Toko is chittering at Imposter's kouhai, and it does not seem to be a nice conversation. Mikan's kouhai intervenes, and he speaks loudly enough that most of his chitters are decipherable without bending down; he says something about "inappropriate language".

"He's standing up for his friend," Mikan says, smiling delightedly. "I'm so proud. Is this what it's like...?"

"What what's like?" Fuyuhiko asks, from his corner.

Before she can answer, their pleasant lunch is interrupted by a sudden appearance from Usami. She tells them again that their job is to have fun and make friends on this school trip and help their kouhais do the same, and-

Ding dong, bing bong.

Usami looks immediately panicked, as an unfamiliar sound fills the room.

(Mini THH AU Masterlist)

[lavaridge-gym-official]

do you have any tips for becoming a gym leader? what did you do to become one?

So, here in my Hoenn, the League isn't a sports thing, and you can't actually do the gym challenge until you're 17 or older. Gym leaders function as community leaders. Like Lavaridge still has a mayor and whatnot, but there are certain things--especially involving pokémon or any supernatural occurences (which are often pokémon-related)--that I'm in charge of handling. Like, a salamence setting up a lair in the southern reaches of the Lady's Spine, where they are definitely not supposed to be? Call a gym leader to relocate them. Spooky tower of sand spotted in the desert? A gym leader should investigate; it's probably a ghost or something. Stuff like that.

I'm also in charge of making sure my gym trainers are, well, trained to help people who are on or just starting their journeys. We make sure people learn how to handle their pokémon in a way that's safe for everyone involved. Pokémon are smarter than animals but still need to be taught things, y'know? The partnering instinct does a lot to help them listen, but that's not the end-all-be-all. And ultimately the gym challenge is a test of how well you've bonded with and trained your pokémon. As a gym leader it's my job to evaluate whether the people challenging me have done so, or if they still have things to work on. I sometimes hand out badges even if they lose--if they proved they were working well with their partner the whole time. Being a good team isn't always about winning every time!

We're also in charge of getting people their first pokémon. Not everyone can purchase, adopt, or wander the wilderness on their own to catch a new friend, and in those cases a gym employee accompanies the prospective trainer to make sure they're safe while they catch a pokémon. We also work with shelters to adopt out pokémon in need of loving homes.

As for how I got the position: in order to be in the running for gym leader, you have to beat the E4 and champion, and even then you're not guaranteed a leadership spot. After I beat the gym challenge myself, I apprenticed under the last Lavaridge gym leader, Deirdre, for years before she retired and passed the position along to me. I did a lot of training and helped train a lot of people.

And tips... huh. My best advice is that you should stay true to yourself no matter what. It's no use trying to be somebody else--be the best you that you can be. Work hard, but take care of yourself too, and don't burn out or stop having fun. And remember that everybody loses sometimes--and that's okay! Losing or failing is how we learn to do better next time. So roll with it! Pick yourself back up and go again with more experience. We can always improve as people, and always learn more about the world and the folks around us.

That got kind of longwinded, haha! I'm just really passionate about this sort of thing. Thanks for the ask, sweetheart ❤️