#and whether effort went into it

[honestlyvan]

Thinking about image model generated art and gifmaking is giving me some weird vibrations about how there really is some weird association of the virtuesvirtues of a medium with the virtues of the people working in it. Gifmaking being associated with KPop fans doesn't make the concept of frame interpolation racist, and someone marketing themselves as a cheaper alternative to some other artist doesn't make the concept of generative art inherently class antagonistic.

It's somehow reminiscent of CJ the X's distinction between "stupid art" and "evil art", how a medium that has a low skill floor can produce things that are very stupid and easy to perceive as low-effort but how that's not the same as them having something wrong with them. If you look at my animation tag, most of it is motion graphics done with AfterEffects, and while it's probably wrong to call it a low skill floor program the way an AI art generator is... there is still a world where instead of programmatically telling shapes to whizz by on a screen, a different Van would have drawn those same animations frame by frame, producing exactly the same animation.

And I don't think the fact that I did them programmatically somehow invalidates the artistic intent that went into them, y'know? I could open AE right now and produce a 250x250 looping gif of clouds and while I know how to do that quick, to make it look good and to make me like it, I would have to spend time considering how the various elements, colours, timings and whatever the particle system/noise generator I use spits out fit together. I would have to fiddle with seeds and levels and timings to make it look good. I would have to spend a long time just staring and thinking about what I'm making before I could make it good.

I don't know enough about generative art tools to know how much fiddling goes into them once they're taught and ready to go, but I do know enough about deep learning to know it's a haphazard, frustrating process that you as the artist have only limited control over, which is why it doesn't appeal to me. But I have made gifs in the past, and I know how that process requires an eye for consistency and composition, framing and colour that a lot of other visual artists don't have because they're not working with time as one of the creative dimensions.

And like... who am I, from my high horse as someone in possession of these skills, to tell someone who is still developing these skills or who has a different aesthetic concept of what is good than me, what they're making is low-effort. That's not my judgement to make. I didn't make it. Only the artist themselves can say if somehing was low-effort or not. I don't see why I should have so little faith in other artists to assume they have no interest in putting in any effort.

[crossdressingdeath]

One thing that I find both fascinating and deeply sad in TSatS is that when Will asks if they're going to Percy's house to ask him to come with them to Tartarus Nico says no on the grounds that he doesn't want to involve Percy in it... but when asked why Bob wouldn't ask Percy for help, Nico's immediate thought is that Bob didn't think Percy and Annabeth would help him. Like, that's his one and only theory. I suspect that there's a part of that where... Nico thinks to himself that Bob doesn't think Percy and Annabeth would help so that he doesn't have to think that he doesn't think Percy and Annabeth would help. In other words he's thinking it's Bob who didn't call for Percy and Annabeth because he didn't believe they'd help him, because the alternative is for Nico to say "I'm not asking them for help because I know they would say no and I don't want to face that refusal". And it's not that he wants them to come! If Nico had had his way he would've gone alone, he doesn't want to put anyone in danger, it's just that he managed to find the only demigod as stubborn as he is and made the mistake of telling Will what his plans were. But it's one thing to not want to involve people in something incredibly dangerous; it's quite another to know that if you asked for their help, and in this case their help saving the person they owe their lives to, they would say no. I'm sure they would be properly apologetic about refusing, they do seem to feel genuinely terrible about forgetting Bob (which... good) and "I'm not going to superhell again" is a perfectly understandable boundary to have, but I think Nico just... doesn't want to admit to himself that he was willing to go to Tartarus for Percy but Percy would never do the same for him. Hence him leaving it at "I don't want to make him do this" when asked if he'll ask Percy to help for his sake, but thinking quite openly to himself that Bob probably didn't think Percy and Annabeth would help, because Bob helped them out of loyalty to Nico so it isn't devastatingly sad to admit they'd never do the same for him the way it would be for Nico to admit that Percy would never go to Tartarus for him despite him going to Tartarus largely to help Percy.

Also, it's deeply disappointing that it doesn't come up again later in the book because please for the love of god Rick can we please have a discussion around Nico's fatal flaw being his "will literally go to hell and back for people who he knows would never do the same for him" level of loyalty and not holding grudges, and also how literally the only evidence even his own sister could offer for holding grudges being his fatal flaw was that he's the son of Hades and also was still upset about his sister dying six months after it happened. Now that he's got someone as loyal to him as he is to everyone else (Will refusing to not follow Nico to hell is so good after so long of Nico constantly being prepared to give up everything for others and getting next to nothing in return) it's a great time to get into how despite basically every other POV character going on about Nico being creepy and morally dubious actually his most consistent character trait is being the most loyal character in the whole series (and possibly the whole Riordanverse, honestly) no matter how many times that loyalty burns him.

[deadandphilgames]

oversharing in the tags time :)

[thewingedwolf]

no this was ROUGH okay because i was just staring at the tv in horror as Sam shows Ellie his leg, knowing what’s coming, and when they bust through the door and Henry points the gun at Joel, my brain first went to “Joel is going to accidentally kill Henry in order to save Ellie from being bit by Sam” but then Henry is aware enough to shoot Sam to save Ellie and the moment the gun fired I knew Henry was about to kill himself, and because this is how my mind works when I watch shows like this, I thought “if B was Sam in this situation and I was Henry, I don’t know that I would react any different” and I felt a gut wrenching, sick moment of compassion and warmth towards poor Henry as Joel is begging him to give up the gun because he is also just as aware as I am what is about to happen, but then the camera switches to Ellie’s face and I switched into horror once again as I realized “oh my god but Ellie is going to watch Henry pull the trigger after she told Sam it would be alright no WAIT” and then the gun goes off again and Ellie screams

[aeolids-zenith]

i hate posts that are supposed to be positivity for people who lack friends or that say that social connections are like unexpectedly inevitable/straightforward to make or something, but then like. don't elaborate on how that is possible. it always just makes me feel more hopeless

[angorwhosebabyisthis]

having thoughts about like. how the flashbacks we see of setrákus, pittacus, and celwe are ambiguous enough--the tiny slices we get of their dynamic, and all of the missing context in between--that pittacus' nastiness toward setrákus might be in response to setrákus being abusive toward him while they were growing up. and setrákus' nastiness toward him might be in response to pittacus being abusive toward him while they were growing up. or maybe they were just shitty to each other and in general, with celwe and Everyone Else getting caught in the crossfire.

the authors probably intended for it to be the first option, to the extent they were thinking about it in those terms at all: pittacus grew up with a friend who's been shitty to downright abusive toward him, and by their big confrontation he's had enough time away from him to unpack how fucked up his behavior was, and understand his tactics in order to call them out. you could interpret it that way, and were probably meant to, and it would make sense.

but... that assumption is kind of the problem, to me. because the other very much valid way to interpret what we see is a certain kind of abuse that's bad enough by itself, but is primarily aimed at neurodivergent and otherwise marginalized people in particular. (and setrákus is autistic as fuck.) and it's abuse that widely goes unseen and ignored, and is most often perpetuated by people who know they can afford to do it, or think they can.

might have to come back to it in more detail in a reblog, honestly, because it's a lot to talk about; but essentially it comes down to silencing someone by either openly dismissing what they say as nonsense that no one can understand but them, and isn't important enough to try, or disguising it behind a bad faith ''attempt'' to understand so they can say they tried and there's no point. it's a lifelong trauma which has shaped enormous parts of my personality and how i communicate, i can spot it a mile away, and i see all the hallmarks of it in their relationship and how setrákus is affected by it.

and that bothers me. it bothers me a lot that we're supposed to see one and not the other. it bothers me that it's not even 'pittacus' behavior is genuinely shit, but it's somewhat more understandable in the version of events where the context is that he was abused'; he's framed as the hero of the situation either way, who's acting out of pure kindness and reason and good intent. it bothers me that the person who is easy to interpret as having been abused this way would, even then, still be depicted as the Abusive Hate Sink Incarnation of Evil. (because he is abusive, and he is very much an evil son of a bitch. regardless of who was worse in his relationship with pittacus, that's true.) and it bothers me that that framing makes it harder to explore how the cycle of abuse manifests in this scenario, because it absolutely is a thing that happens and is worth telling stories about.

just, i don't know. thoughts. hm.

[peapod20001]

Haha I wish the one time I had a partner wasn’t a literal joke

[birdmenmanga]

I feel like my mother has been attempting to fish for a coming out as transgender from me but I tacitly refuse to come out until I’m financially independent and stable and also because I know she’s horrible at serious conversations and always knows the wrong things to say despite her best intentions. “I’m actually more progressive than you think” wink wink nudge nudge okay mom I hope you’re ready to hear about birdmen then

[kneworder]

i love when i come into work expecting to have a coworker to spend wiling away our semi-busy friday night shift with but instead find out i am working alone (not a lie i actually don't mind working alone). i love when i bust my ass working concessions and ushing all theaters alone and BREAK MY BACK to engage with people and make them happy and like me so that they'll tip me and keep a casual estimate of my tips all night only, come closing at past 11 pm, to find that my manager, a very nice, a TOO nice guy has given me $21 instead of the $41 i made in tips tonight bc the guys this morning who worked the slow shift together made a total of $4 and he felt bad giving them each $2 so he just never closed their shift and gave them a cut of mine so that i went home with the amount of tips i expect to make on a good slow wednesday closing shift and not the tips i expect to make working an extremely long and tiring shift where i actively work at getting tips instead of just telling customers to skip the tip screen like i know the morning shift guys do (take a fucking guess as to whether i'm lying here).

[bipgrinklebink]

In addition to how stupid it is to pay ANY amount of money just for a blue checkmark, can we also talk about the fact that paying for a verified status means that ANYONE can be verified now? Right now, the verification system is (somewhat) fair and accurate - most platforms need an account to include a phone number, large following, links from credible-ish media sources to your account, etc. in order to be considered “verified.” But with this new plan, any schmo can pretend to be anybody if they can make the account fast enough and have the means/will to pay the subscription.  So imagine you’re a new content creator that finally hit it big enough to start getting trolls, and one of these trolls decides to create an account in your name, pay for verification, and then start posting trash online. Yeah your core fanbase might recognize the account as fake right away, but the people who don’t know you and see a blue checkmark posting  We’ve also gotten to a place where most people subconciously equate a username+checkmark with credibility, so that’s another level of disaster right there. I know this is going to end up as another internet thing to be careful with and people are going to adapt to ignore the checkmark or whatever, but why create such an unnecessary headache in the first place?

[ardenrosegarden]

really breaks my heart when I look into a tag for the memes and jokes and it’s young people terrified for their future

[great-and-small]

When I was in vet school I went to this one lecture that I will never forget. Various clubs would have different guest lecturers come in to talk about relevant topics and since I was in the Wildlife Disease Association club I naturally attended all the wildlife and conservation discussions. Well on this particular occasion, the speakers started off telling us they had been working on a project involving the conservation of lemurs in Madagascar. Lemurs exist only in Madagascar, and they are in real trouble; they’re considered the most endangered group of mammals on Earth. This team of veterinarians was initially assembled to address threats to lemur health and work on conservation solutions to try and save as many lemur species from extinction as possible. As they explored the most present dangers to lemurs they found that although habitat loss was the primary problem for these vulnerable animals, predation by humans was a significant cause of losses as well. The vets realized it was crucial for the hunting of lemurs by native people to stop, but of course this is not so simple a problem.

The local Malagasy people are dealing with extreme poverty and food insecurity, with nearly half of children under five years old suffering from chronic malnutrition. The local people have always subsisted on hunting wildlife for food, and as Madagascar’s wildlife population declines, the people who rely on so-called bushmeat to survive are struggling more and more. People are literally starving.

Our conservation team thought about this a lot. They had initially intended to focus efforts on education but came to understand that this is not an issue arising from a lack of knowledge. For these people it is a question of survival. It doesn’t matter how many times a foreigner tells you not to eat an animal you’ve hunted your entire life, if your child is starving you are going to do everything in your power to keep your family alive.

So the vets changed course. Rather than focus efforts on simply teaching people about lemurs, they decided to try and use veterinary medicine to reduce the underlying issue of food insecurity. They supposed that if a reliable protein source could be introduced for the people who needed it, the dependence on meat from wildlife would greatly decrease. So they got to work establishing new flocks of chickens in the most at-risk communities, and also initiated an aggressive vaccination program for Newcastle disease (an infectious illness of poultry that is of particular concern in this area). They worked with over 600 households to ensure appropriate husbandry and vaccination for every flock, and soon found these communities were being transformed by the introduction of a steady protein source. Families with a healthy flock of chickens were far less likely to hunt wild animals like lemurs, and fewer kids went hungry. Thats what we call a win-win situation.

This chicken vaccine program became just one small part of an amazing conservation outreach initiative in Madagascar that puts local people at the center of everything they do. Helping these vulnerable communities of people helps similarly vulnerable wildlife, always. If we go into a country guns-blazing with that fire for conservation in our hearts and a plan to save native animals, we simply cannot ignore the humans who live around them. Doing so is counterintuitive to creating an effective plan because whether we recognize it or not, humans and animals are inextricably linked in many ways. A true conservation success story is one that doesn’t leave needy humans in its wake, and that is why I think this particular story has stuck with me for so long.

(Source 1)

(Source 2- cool video exploring this initiative from some folks involved)

(Source 3)

[orangerainforest]

🌻

[lovelyghst]

simon riley with a virgin!gf would be such a sweet, softhearted bully. always making an effort to be so gentle with you, never pressuring you past a prolonged kiss or some touches between layers of fabric, only to turn around and relentlessly tease you in passing.

simon riley and his addiction to subtly dragging a hand up your thigh when you're in public, whispering sexual remarks in your ear to get you all hot and flustered at the worst of times.

simon riley thought the reason he worked you up so much and so often was to get you begging for it, but was proven terribly wrong when he finally broke through your reserve and even he couldn't believe the words that came so surely from his mouth.

"not yet, baby. wanna make sure you're ready for me when the time comes, otherwise you’ll end up hurtin’ yourself."

simon riley adores watching you touch yourself. whether it be from right by your side as he guides you along, or from the entrance to your bedroom as you missed his texts telling you he’d be home early. he just loves to see you struggling to finish, getting all frustrated and embarrassed when you can’t do it yourself, prompting him to reassure you that everything’s alright before he’s taking over.

simon riley allows you to use his thigh or abs to get off only when you really need it badly, which you'll need to be in tears to prove most often. it's cruel, maybe, but reticence is necessary.

simon riley will urge you on as you rub your clothed cunt against his flexed muscles, even grabbing your hips to help you finish when you lose energy and begin to slow your movements. laughs when he bounces his leg to make you lose balance and yelp, but pouts in sympathy when you whine 'cause he ruined your high.

simon riley never lets you use his crotch to get off, though, as he can't promise his own restraint after a certain amount of your whines. it's the only time the soldier feels grossly weak, and you could never seem to figure out why it’d be such a bad thing.

simon riley gives you his mouth at most, and that's only after weeks of your pining and pleading for the next step. he just had to taste you before he went mad, but nothing more. he adores your innocence far too much to take it away it so soon.

the first time simon riley eats you out is nothing short of a warm mess. he tries to take his time—and he did, bringing out every word of praise in his vocabulary as you gradually got more comfortable—but once he started with the real thing, he couldn't hold himself back.

his thick and hot tongue laps at your pussy as his eyes quickly turn dazed, big inked arms wrapped around your soft thighs to hold your sensitive frame down. you can't tell that he's just slightly grinding himself down on the bed since you're instantly entranced in watching him show you what you've been missing out on for so long.

you don't notice how severely his cock strains in his pants with your mind only able to focus on the knot in your stomach, and how pretty he looks with a slick-covered stubble and drunken smirk. he makes you come on his tongue once before the moment is quickly cut short, your blissful whimpers and raw taste driving him to mutter a sharp swear under his breath and abandon you for the restroom.

you're left on the bed alone, distraught and worried you'd done something wrong, completely unaware to the fact he's fisting his cock with gritted teeth and an unruly pace only a door away.

heavy breathing filling the space, his mind running on all the possibilities for how he could just take you right now, apologize for everything. christ, he should just give you what you want and his poor cock throbs at the prospect, but what kind of man would he be?

he bites his tongue, muffles his groans, and spills himself in his palm with clenched eyelids and fists. absolutely shameful, but bound to happen. you hear the sink run for a moment before he's returning without a single trace or reason for his disappearance. he reads the guilt on your face and soothes you with a kiss to the forehead.

"sorry for the wait, lovie. wasn't very fair of me to leave you like this, now, was it?" and you can only shake your head, tears spilling over.

and finally, simon riley with a virgin!gf who will spend the rest of his day making things up to you: resuming his services with a newfound patience, showing you all the best ways to touch yourself for when he's not there- or for when he is there, because as he reminds you often, he won't be able to take his sweet girl's virginity for a long, long time. for your own sake, of course <3

[badbtssmut]

Money shot

When you want to make it into the porn industry, there’s only one thing stopping you; you don’t have a male partner to costar in your audition tape, but fortunately for you, your best friend Jungkook is eager to star in your first tape.

Contains: blowjob, fingering, jk cums on her face, jk being smug, doggy, missionary, riding, dirty talk, some spanking, possessive Jungkook?, recording

Admin note: Idea from one of my anons :)

—

“Are you sure you want to do this?”

“Are you really asking me that while I’m standing here butt naked with a boner in my hands? Come on, I think we are way past the point of second guessing whether I want this or not. Besides, it was your idea to begin with, don’t be a chicken, y/n.”

“I am not being a chicken! I just— was checking on you, I just don’t want things to be different between us, ya know?” You say while staring at the carpet beneath your feet, trying not to look at his big cock standing proud right in front of your face.

Jungkook placed a finger under your chin, raising your head so you would look at him.

"Nothing will be different between us, okay? If at any point you want to stop, just tell me. I won't do anything unless you tell me to, you know I won't force you to do anything you don't want to do. And the same goes for me, aight? If I want to stop at any point, I’ll tell you. Now stop worrying.”

You take a deep breath before answering.

"Okay, okay. Let's do this."

Jungkook grabs the camera, starting the recording. He sits down on the couch and gestures for you to come closer. You kneel in front of him, starting by wrapping your fingers around his cock, pumping him slowly while you looked up at the lens, before your eyes gazed back at the cock, watching his cock swell up at your efforts. You stopped jerking him off, and instead used your mouth, taking as much of his cock as possible before you started to bob your head up and down.

Jungkook grunted, temporarily forgetting about the device in his hands, quickly snapping out of it as he readjusted the focus on you, trying to keep the camera from shaking due to the pleasure he was receiving from the warmth of your mouth.

“Fuck, yes,” Jungkook hissed, throwing his head back as you continued sucking him off, his cock hitting the back of your throat every time you went down on him. “Babe, show the camera your pretty pussy.” He instructed and you stood, Jungkook stood from the couch, positioning the camera on the table in front of the both of you, before he walked over to you to pull off your lingerie.

His hands roamed over your chest, before moving to your backside and giving it a squeeze, a gasp escaping your lips at the suddenness of it.

“Come here.” Jungkook pulled you to the couch and got you on his lap. “Spread your legs for the camera.”

You obeyed, spreading your legs open, and Jungkook took the opportunity to tease your folds with his fingers, before sinking a digit into your wet cunt. You moaned at the feeling of his long digits, and bucked your hips forward as he added another, his thumb flicking at your clit.

He fingered you like this, and your head rolled back, eyes closed in bliss. You let him have control of your body, your moans filling the air.

But before you could get to your peak, he stopped, his fingers sliding out of you and you whimpered.

Jungkook licked his fingers and grabbed his cock, placing it at your entrance.

“Want my cock now, don't you?" He said, slapping his cock against your cunt. You nodded, and he smirked, teasing your folds with the tip of his cock. Fuck, it felt hard as steel.

"Then show them how well you take me, baby."

You sank down on his cock, letting it stretch your walls, and you sighed. Fuck, it felt so fucking good. You started bouncing up and down, and Jungkook's hands settled on your hips, guiding your movements, thrusting his hips up to meet yours.

Your moans filled the air, the sound of your wetness mixed with his grunts. The camera captured every detail of the penetration, and the thought of how it would be used made you feel even more aroused. Would this tape be the start of your career? Would the executives be drooling or getting a boner from watching this tape?

“Love cock?” Jungkook whispered in your ear, repeating himself again when he realized the camera must’ve not picked that up. “You love this cock, y/n?”

“Ya, love cock, so good.” You said with a shaky breath. “Oh!” You winced, forcing yourself to bounce on his cock harder, but your back and hips started to feel sore, and your thighs began to ache. Jungkook noticed how you were starting to slow down, and decided to switch positions, he stopped you, and guided you off his cock. “Get on the bed.” He instructed you, taking the camera from the table, soon joining you on the bed. The camera pointed down at your dripping wet pussy, and his tip teased your folds, sliding his full length up and down against your slick, the head of his cock brushing against your clit, sending tingles down your spine.

You moaned, your body shivering from the teasing, and you couldn't help but lift your hips, trying to get him to enter you. He chuckled, finally sinking into your cunt, and you both groaned at the feeling.

"So tight," He mumbled, pulling his cock out and pushing it back into your pussy. "Feel good, baby?"

"Yes, ah, feels good…”

Jungkook started fucking you slowly, his hips rocking back and forth. He kept his eyes on the camera, the lens focusing on where your bodies were joined. His other hand moved to your ankle, holding onto it as he quickened his pace. Your pussy was so wet, it was making lewd squelching sounds as he fucked you.

“Pussy doing so good, taking me so well...fuck, so tight and warm for me."

You could only moan in response.

"Yeah, your little cunt loves this cock, doesn't it?"

You whimpered, feeling the tip of his cock graze against your sweet spot.

“Yes, my cunt loves cock so much,” You moaned.

Jungkook let out a shaky breath, pulling out of you before he made you turn on your belly, ass up and head down, and he spanked your ass, causing you to squeal. He gave it another smack, the flesh jiggling.

"Arch your back a bit," He said, and you did.

The camera was now aimed at your ass, and he pushed the tip of his cock into your begging pussy. He thrusted into you, one hand holding the camera, while the other hand grabbed onto your hair, tugging at it as he slammed into your pussy.

"Fuck, oh!" You cried, and his grip on your hair tightened, his cock drilling in and out of you, the bed creaking beneath the both of you.

"So fucking good, shit."

"Yes, fuck, more, more, more, please," You whined, and he groaned.

"Take my cock so well, babe. So beautiful." He looked around for a place to put the camera on, and he decided on the dresser, the camera now recording both of you from a different angle.

Jungkook's hand was still in your hair, and he pulled at it, using it as an anchor as he pounded into you.

"I'm close," You whined, the tip of his cock pounding your sweet spot relentlessly. "Oh please, yes, right there!"

"Come, cum on my cock," He challenged you, his pace speeding up, your arms gave out and your face hit the pillows.

"Ah, ah, ah," You gasped, the pleasure building up inside you. You tried to get back up but Jungkook grabbed hold of your arms and pinned them back, his fingers interlocking with yours, his weight on top of you, fucking into you steadily.

"Oh, oh, oh," You moaned, toes curling and teeth gritted. "Fuck, fuck, fuck," You cried, starting to see stars, your knees wobbling.

“Thought you were gonna cum? I guess your greedy pussy didn’t wanna huh? Want to keep it wrapped around my cock, don't you, babe?"

“Yes, don’t want to stop, never want you to stop."

"Yeah? Never want me to stop?” He cooed, his hands now moving to your hips, guiding you back and forth on his cock, and you started to ride him backwards.

At this rate, you were going to pass out, you were overflowing from pleasure, but somehow, you were still eager for more.

"Oh, fuck," You whimpered, and you were a panting, sweating mess, the room was hot, and all you could hear was the slapping of skin against skin, along with the grunts and moans coming out of both of your mouths. You were so close.

Jungkook plopped the camera right in front of your face, now capturing how you were so fucked out and yet, still desperate for more.

"You will show the camera what that face looks like when you cum, right?"

You nodded. "Yeah, want to show the camera when I cum, please, oh, ah, more, please,"

You were moaning uncontrollably, feeling so fucking sensitive, and the camera was now capturing the look on your face, the way you were biting your lips and clenching your jaw, teary eyes from the intensity of the pleasure. You felt Jungkook’s hands squeeze into your tits, his cock pounding your sweet spot mercilessly, and that sent you over the edge.

"FUCK!" You screamed, cumming on his cock, pussy convulsing around him, your legs trembling. You buried your face in the pillows, muffling your cries, and he stopped thrusting, allowing you to ride out your orgasm on his cock on your own pace.

When you were all spent, Jungkook pulled out of you and took the camera, pointing it down at your face as he started to rub himself off, a few pumps later and he was spilling his cum onto your face, some of his load getting in your hair. He groaned, his body jerking forward from his climax, and the camera caught the whole thing, the lens zooming in on the streaks of white on your face.

“And… remove.”

“Huh? What are you doing?” You asked, voice hoarse from the screaming, and he reached over to grab a tissue from the nightstand, wiping the cum from your face.

“Sorry, but you won’t be sending in any audition tapes, After today… I won’t allow any man to see you in this way, this is only for my eyes and mine only.” And without warning, he pressed his lips against yours.

[is-the-post-reliable]

(reposting as I am unable to reblog the original.)

requested by @kodicraft

🔶 Rating: Partially Reliable 🔶

The Devils Hole is home to the endangered Devils Hole Pupfish.

From the National Park Service's page on Devils Hole: 'Devils Hole--a detached unit of Death Valley National Park--is habitat for the only naturally occurring population of the endangered Devils Hole Pupfish (Cyprinodon diabolis).'

The existence of the pupfish does prevent the pumping of groundwater in the area, after a legal battle. I am not sure this would apply to all mining.

From a High Country News article on the pupfish: 'The Cappaert case went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, testing the power of the Antiquities Act and the weight of the new Endangered Species Act. In 1976, the High Court affirmed the federal government’s right to maintain water levels sufficient to support the pupfish, even at the expense of water rights held by nearby ranchers.'

The habitat of this fish is incredibly small. However, it is slightly larger than suggested, as the fish swim at least 20m deep; the rock shelf referenced is the only place where the fish feed and spawn in the wild.

From the same National Park Service page: 'Although pupfish have been found as deep as 66 feet (20 m), the fish forage and spawn exclusively on a shallow rock shelf near the surface, feeding on the algae and diatoms found there.'

It is true that multiple conservation attempts have failed. Previous attempts to breed or crossbreed the fish have not been successful.

From a National Park Foundation article on the pupfish: 'Despite past efforts to create a similar artificial platform for the pupfish, as well as attempts to breed Devils Hole pupfish and hybrids in captivity, this small ledge remains the sole spawning and feeding shelf for the fish.'

I have not been able to find any references to 'assassination attempts'. One individual did threaten to pour pesticide into Devil's Hole, but it seems this was never attemped. If anyone can find anything on this, please let me know, but in the mean time I have to say this claim is unsubstantiated.

From a High Country News article on an incident of tresspassing and the pupfish: 'A Pahrump newspaper editor even threatened to throw the pesticide Rotenone into the sunken cave to “make the pupfish a moot point.”'

The fencing was initially installed after two people drowned, not after an assassination attempt. Later, more fencing and security was installed after three men drunkenly tresspassed and killed a pupfish.

From the same National Park Service page: 'Subsequently, the Hole was fenced after two divers drowned in its water.'

From a High Country News article on the incident of tresspassing : 'Since the incident, Devils Hole has become an even more formidable fortress. The Park Service capped its towering fences with additional barbed wire. The public can only view the sunken cave from a distance now, more than 20 feet above it. And inside the fenced viewing area are even more cameras, motion sensors and “No Trespassing” signs.'

There is a breeding program at Ash Meadows Facility, where scientists have attempted to mimic the natural habitat of the pupfish.

From a National Geographic article on the breeding attempts: 'And when they built the Ash Meadows facility, the scientists tried to create a mirror image of Devil’s Hole, which meant bringing in water, substrate, and algae from the natural environment.'

It is possible that a different research/breeding facility is being referred to, but the Ash Meadows Facility does not seem to have a secret location. In fact, the facility is open to visitors, according to their website.

I wont attempt to fact check whether the cave is haunted, but I can confirm that at least two people drowned and were not recovered from Devils Hole. Whilst the cave is not truly bottomless, the bottom has not yet been found.

From an SFGATE article on Devils Hole: 'When the bottom of Devils Hole is one day found, the skeletons of two brothers-in-law may finally be recovered, fathoms below the frolicking pupfish.'

The breeding program has been more successful in recent years. This may be due to the discovery that diving beetles were eating the eggs and larvae, and the beetle population in the artificial environment being controlled. (This fact was not included in the original post, but I thought it was cool.)

From a National Geographic article on the breeding attempts: 'As Feuerbacher watched the infrared footage, which can visualize objects in the dark, a tiny pupfish larva smaller than a peppercorn flitted into the camera’s frame. This was big news. When a population gets as low as that of the pupfish, every animal—wild or captive, larva or adult—is critical to the species’ survival.

“I was pretty excited to see there was reproduction going on in the tank, and I just watched it for a little bit,” says Feuerbacher, a fish biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. “Then I saw a beetle swim past.”

It began circling the fish, and closing in.

“Then it just dove in and basically tore the fish in half right while I was watching,” says Feuerbacher.

[...]

During the first beetle collection, facility manager Jennifer Gumm says they caught 500 beetles in three hours. And on the very next pupfish egg collection, which is done by leaving out pieces of carpet that the fish like to lay their eggs on, the team retrieved close to 40 pupfish eggs.

Before this, they had been lucky to find four or five pupfish eggs during a refuge collection. Usually, it was zero.'