#and a lot is yet to occur

[chiarrara]

new scene, inspired by this art, which set me off on another daydream. this is recollection, not writing:

I'm starting to imagine more and more scenes that don't fit exactly into the outline I have, which is fun because i think the story is developing and getting better because of it. I don't know how it's gonna turn out, or if I'll even use everything. But I'm having a good time, and I like where it's going.

this iteration of megumi is really interesting to play with. it's like the most extreme version of everything that makes him him and how he confronts it when those things are baked even deeper into his dna

[crtastrophe]

Kidpix commission for @facelessoldgargoyle! (character belongs to me)

[why-animals-do-the-thing]

You may notice I frequently comment on the assumptions people make about animal facilities based on their branding. Frequently, people assume accredited facilities are inherently better for animals than unaccredited facilities, or assume sanctuaries are inherently more moral / better at caring for their animals than zoos.

I want to show you an example of why I am always, always skeptical of these assumptions.

If you’re in the California area, you might have heard about Hank the Tank - who is actually a Henrietta, btw - the 500 pound nuisance bear from Lake Tahoe who broke into 21 homes in search of food. She was recently captured by wildlife officials and moved to a sanctuary in Colorado. The Wild Animal Sanctuary has three main facilities, two in Colorado and one in TX. To give you some context, it’s the biggest carnivore sanctuary in the country - they advertise somewhere between 300-500 animals, mostly large carnivores, between their properties. It’s where most of the Tiger King cats went. It’s PETA’s preferred placement for confiscated exotic animals. So, obviously, it’s got to be great, right? Except… take a look at what they posted about Henrietta’s arrival.

Here’s their post about Henrietta’s arrival at the Refuge, the large facility in Colorado that isn’t open to the public. Let’s take a closer look at that food trough…

What do we see here? An entire rotisserie chicken that is either blackened or highly seasoned, and a whole ham. Maybe a second chicken underneath the pile, I can’t quite tell. The sanctuary gets the majority of their bear food donated from groceries stores once it’s past the sell-by date, so we know those are older meats and they’re full of a ton of salt. Then, for fruit and veg, there’s a cantaloupe, mango, corn, avocado, grapes, and apples. Maybe a pepper or two, it’s hard to tell. That’s a lot of sugar and not a lot of fiber or roughage.

But… on top of it and to the right… are those Twizzlers?

Yes.

The sanctuary confirmed on Facebook that they fed this recently rescued obese bear what looks like almost an entire pack of Twizzlers.

I don’t know of any world in which it’s appropriate to feed candy to a bear. Maybe a piece or two as a really high value reinforcer for hard behaviors (that isn’t relevant here, it’s openly against this sanctuary’s ethos to do any husbandry or medical training). An entire pack of Twizzlers is just appalling. But it’s not uncommon for this facility! I have a book written about their operations and animal care (that I bought at their gift shop this spring) which openly discusses how the bears get fed bread, doughnuts, marshmallows, and all sorts of incredibly unhealthy food that comes in with the grocery donations.

But hey, this is apparently fine for the bears, according to the sanctuary’s founder. He was quoted in that same book as saying “Bears are the only animal I know of that can eat insane amounts of sugar and it never hurts them. It does not hurt their organs. They do not get clogged arteries. They do not have high blood pressure. In the wild they eat all these sweet berries in the fall, and they convert sugar to fat… so the more sugar they get the better… we would all love to have a system like that!”

Now while it’s true that bears have physiological adaptations that modulate their insulin production and sensitivity in ways that appear to prevent them from from developing diabetes, that does’t mean it’s healthy for them to regularly eat processed carbohydrates, sugar, and general junk food. And remember - Henrietta gained her fame because of how incredibly overweight she already is, and because she was seeking out human food, According to the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, a healthy weight for a normal adult black bear is between 100-300 pounds. So, obviously, the best thing to do is… continue to feed her candy.

Then, later on in the book, it details how they have to bribe a camel to sit tight for a regular medical examination (since they don’t train for medical behaviors) by letting him drink a can of Mountain Dew each time.

If a zoo was known publicly to be feeding their animals Mountain Dew or a couple Twizzlers - even just once, on a rare occasion - they’d be eviscerated in the media and by public opinion. But feeding out inappropriate junk food appears to be a pretty common practice at this place, and it just goes unscrutinized because everyone assumes sanctuaries are inherently better for animals.

So, long story short, never make assumptions about the quality of a facility based on it’s branding or accreditation. (TWAS is accredited by the Global Federation of Animal Sanctuaries). If you have concerns about the ethics or practices of a facility, always try to put your preconceptions aside, go and see for yourself, and think critically about what you see and what you’re told.

[rustedleopard]

I feel like if Chujin was still alive during the events of Undertale Yellow, his and Clover's relationship would be incredibly rocky. Pacifist!Clover could bring him around to tolerating them (after all, they have that sort of effect on everyone), but it would be more in a "this human is the only 'good' human" manner than a "maybe I should reevaluate my opinions on humans overall because you can't judge an entire group based off (very biased) stories and one bad experience." Even then, that opinion would be subject to change should Clover ever get frustrated or behave "too aggressively" or act in any manner that isn't perfectly docile. If Clover ends up attacking a monster then it's "humans are just as horrible as they were in the war stories, I should've known better" regardless of the circumstances that could've pushed Clover to fight. Suffocating expectations and endless demands for patience when he wouldn't ask the same of a fellow monster.

And heaven forbid he ever meet Clover on a No Mercy Run...

[markantonys]

the main difference between WOT and ROP fandoms is that if you tell WOT fans you're a show-only and don't know anything about the source material, they will go to extreme lengths to protect you from even the most inconsequential of spoilers such as a joke mat told on page 157 of book 1 which will never be relevant to the show in any capacity, whereas if you tell ROP fans you're a show-only and don't know anything about the source material, they will take the opportunity to give you a full-spoiler education on the history of middle earth whether you asked for it or not.

[transingthoseformers]

But what if the autobot and decepticon truce in Earthspark had worked out? (Or at least it ending isn't brushed off as "decepticons doing what they're bound to do")

I say this because I want to see the bots and cons working together (somewhat) to deal with Situations that pop up in s2

But I especially want to think about how Starscream would interact with the human government as the official representative of the decepticons now

[kangals]

i think the main difference in personality so far between puppy-stellina and puppy-kepler is that kep has a lot more patience.

that brings a lot of positive qualities: he has better emotional control and is less prone to tantrums and outbursts than stellina was (i.e. if i have to stop for 10 seconds on a walk to pick up poo, stellina would yelp and pull and cry at being asked to stop). it also means he has better focus and is more forgiving of repetition in training - he doesn't give up nearly as easily when frustrated. and things that may startle or scare him he's more willing to try again or overcome (e.g. he slipped on my stairs and hurt his foot and didn't want to go back up the stairs for a few days, but eventually started trying again. and when butters slaps him he yelps and backs off, but still thinks she's Super Fun and tries to make friends). so he's a bit more methodical in his thinking.

but it does also bring some negatives too: because he has patience, he does not give up once he's decided something. if stellina was overtired and i put her in a crate, she'd fuss for a minute then pretty quickly go "hm alright then" and go to sleep. if i do the same to kep, he fights it and fights it because he doesn't want to be asleep and that's that. he's much more difficult to redirect or distract, and i have to be a lot more mindful of managing him because once he's decided something is fun or tasty or whatever it takes a lot to dissuade him, and he'll go back to it at the first chance. he's very slow to learn boundaries as a result - i have to do a lot more convincing than i'm used to.

they are still overall very similar personalities, especially as they're the same breed and from very similar lines, but i think so far this has been the biggest quality that i've needed to adjust to. puppy-stellina i had to do a lot of mental adjustments learning how to manage her short emotional threshold and sensitivity, so it's interesting to see what does and doesn't translate over to kep.

[bigmeandragonlady]

thinking about the possible uncomfortable parallels between The Alchemist's mentor and Leander. Mages that are very interested in us and/or our curse that, take us in out of the seeming kindness of their hearts

[blujayonthewing]

of all the Extremely Helpful Hot Takes I thought I might get about this, 'do you even like chocolate to begin with?' was admittedly not one I expected

[leahthedreamer]

Pairs is high key the most thrilling discipline rn, at any point several of the teams can win given competition circumstances we love unpredictability.

[amelikos]

Liko and Amethio tomorrow..!

[guinevereslancelot]

got dumped 🫡

[ozzyfromthecafeteria]

y’know what. i feel like sharing so have a snippet from a big wip i’m working on currently. this one’s tilted static sroadtrip and i had an idea of the wyatt masons, quitter, and megan getting tossed out of the static into minneapolis and embarking on a roadtrip to seattle:

About 41 minutes out of Minneapolis, Megan turns into Monticello, trying to remember how to get to the Perkins restaurant. Everything’s eerily silent and empty, save for the radio playing Park It and the discussion about lamprey eels between Lev and Trip. Nines promptly searches for images of lamprey eels (fae got some service 20 minutes ago, so even with Minnesota appearing entirely deserted, someone must be around to be maintaining the cell towers) and Midnight shrieks.

“WHAT IS THAT?!” Di twists in her seat, eager to see what Midnight just screamed at. Jasmine flinches, startled awake from her nap.

“EWW!” Di yelps, swatting her arm and missing Nines’ phone. “Their mouths look so weird!”

“What?” Jasmine whispers, craning her head upwards. “What’s going on?”

“Be nice to them!” Trip defensively snaps. WY-8’s antennae flicks up and down, intrigued. “Their mouths are adapted to better help them latch onto their prey! Hey, quit giggling! I said stop!” Trip swipes lightly at Lev, who’s failing to suppress their laughter.

[musubiki]

after mochi forgets im assuming lime either 1. kisses her again and therefore can no longer hold back or 2. thinks about how she seemed into it for the rest of time but cannot work up the courage again

yeah definitely the second one LMFAAOOOOO

hes the type thats like. okay if i did it again, for HER it would be the first time i kissed her but to ME i already did the bit and it took everything i had i cannot do it again its too embarrassing ill need to kiss her under a different pretense somehow (meanwhile mochi walking around like nothing happened)

[aria0fgold]

WAIT!!! I just remembered something. Core memory unlocked but like-- slightly bad one. Is there long lasting damage to the stomach from being starved for long periods of time? I think my stomach got fucked cuz of that actually.

[libras-interactives]

Usually, I'm not one to comment or ask stuff unless it's a reply but god UTDM (and Lackadaisy) has a grip on me rn :'D

So I have two questions, and if they've been already answered feel free to ignore them!

1. It's stated somewhere in the fic that Flynn uses a cane. So does he have it simply for cosmetic reasons or does he actually need it for walking?

2. Do you think that Cora and Rocky would get along (when not taking the whole 'one does illegal stuff while the other is trying to stop illegal stuff from happening' thing into account)? I kinda thought they would because they are similar personality wise (or at least somewhat lol). Both look up to a co-worker/their boss, crave some sort of validation and are rather hyper.

Also, I just wanted to say I love this fic sm <3

This was the first time I tried out an interactive one, and I'm glad I did :] The added characters are lovely (love love the boys wanna give them a hug or smth), and this fic helped me make four characters! I'm hoping to share them along with art in the near future, but don't get your hopes up, my motivation is a creature that I cannot seem to tame lmao

Anyway, sorry if all of this is rambly, I'm not the best at wording my thoughts in a coherent way :']

Hiiii welcome to my fixation, hope it's fueling your's LOL. Pls tag me if you end up drawing them, I love seeing people's OCs that come from this! And thank you for the kind words 🥺😭

1) People think it's just cosmetic, he goes great lengths to make sure no one sees him using it as a mobility aid. I don't think anyone - sans maybe his brother, the MC a few times, and Cerberus once or twice - has seen him use his proper medical cane. His regular snake-head cane is (per @acesandocs cool ass design) is cool and impressive for showing off but doesn't help when he's hurting.

2) In spite of their similarities, Cora would be aghast at the idea of her and Rocky getting along ... He's a criminal! And drifter! And has a suspicious face!

Setting aside their actual jobs, if they were on the same "team" - They'd both be annoying each other, because Cora leans more orderly and logical, and Rocky is more sensitive and artistic. But to everyone on the outside, they both have very similar chaotic energy and thought processes haha. She also came from a much nicer upbringing and has a more rigid way of thinking, so she probably wouldn't emphatize well with Rocky's "quirks". They both share that inclination to like or dislike someone right away, and stick with that initial opinion.