#if i had the ability to care for one properly!!! u know id get one!!!!

[ritz-regrezzez]

25 days of moodboards day one! (favorite animal)

[astyle-alex]

[Fanfic] Museum Mishap | the BatFam

Heya! As we approach the End of 2020 (FINALLY), I’m realizing that this story is ridiculously close to reaching the milestone of 25k hits on Ao3. To celebrate, I’ll be posting the whole thing here on Tumblr!

(I would however, deeply appreciate it if y’all would pop over to view it on Ao3, briefly, so I can get the view counted as a hit and actually make it over the line for 25k in views before the close of 2020!)

Museum Mishap  |  Chapter 1/6

Fandom: the DC Universe, Batman & co. Pairings: Jay x Tim Characters: Jason Todd, Tim Drake, Bruce Wayne, Dick Grayson Rating: Gen Audiences Warnings: None

Total Word Count: 38,590

Summary:

Middle-School Tim Drake is on a field trip to the Science Museum, but with a WE exhibition of top-secret new technologies being staged in the basement, Tim separates from his classmates and breaks into the staff-only areas by using the skills he's developed over years of stalking Batman and Robin.

Current-Robin Jason Todd catches him in the act, but he's not there to confront Tim for trespassing or truancy - he's there because there's a rumor on the street that Tim Drake knows Batman's real name. And the rumor's gaining ground, quick, drawing in the wrong kind of attention.

When a Drug-Lord decides to take the rumor seriously enough to kidnap the little genius, Jason jumps into the crossfire. It all goes downhill from there. Fast.

(Jason is 14, Tim is 12)

Chapter 1 : Special Access

           A trip to Gotham’s History of Science and Technology Museum would’ve been exciting for even your average twelve year old – it was a day of school that didn’t feel like school, and it meant a chance to hang out, relatively unsupervised, with your friends all day instead of just the one or two classes you managed to luck into having together.

           Timothy Jackson Drake was not your average twelve year old, and a trip to the SciTech Muse was the kind of thing that made his enrollment in middle school entirely worth it. For starters, it was an entire day spent in the heart of the city surrounded by some of the coolest artifacts of science humans could craft.

           And to make things even better, the trip was an all-day, delayed opening affair, starting at 10am and ending at 6pm – which meant he’d actually been able to get enough sleep last night to be well-rested, a rarity in its own right with his particular extra-curriculars. Better yet, he’d been able to tell the Drake housekeeper / nanny that he’d be having dinner with his class so she could go home right at 6 without having to wait for him to get back so she could cook for him.

           That part wasn’t true, of course, but he had concrete evidence that had been legitimately published by the school to help back up his story. Mrs. Simz had her own kid, and was therefore harder to convince than some of the others Tim’s parents had hired, but that also meant she had more reason to hurry home when presented with a believable reason excusing it.

           Being a sixth-grader meant Tim couldn’t just stay in the heart of the city when the field trip was over, he was on a rollcall and the bus back to Gotham Academy wouldn’t leave without his name getting checked off. The high schoolers were allowed to take public transit home if they had a signed permission slip from their parents, but Tim had to wait a few more years before he could con his way into having such freedoms.

           Still, getting over to the West Side from where his school was in Coventry would be far easier than getting there from the Drake Estate way out in Bristol. The extra hour and a half he’d save himself in commuting time mean he would be able to grab some coffee and something to eat without having to rush to get in place for the nighttime adventure he’d planned.

           Beyond all that, the fact that the field trip was this week, meant there was a special exhibition from the cutting-edge tech division of Wayne Enterprises in the midst of being set up. All the main components were being staged in the museum's basement and the ones too big to steal were as close to unprotected as they would ever be – and Tim intended to take full advantage of that.

           He’d been summarily and repeatedly denied acceptance to the WayneTech summer camps as his parents owned one of the company's main competitors: Drake Industries. Apparently corporate espionage was a big enough problem that even ten year olds were suspect. Tim found it ridiculous that the one time he would’ve been entirely okay with having his abilities underestimated was the one time he wasn’t assumed to be just another dumb kid. Honestly, Tim was pretty sure that no one had actually read his application – the computer had probably scanned his ID and kicked his profile out of the running before it had even made it to a human that might care about his actual qualifications.

           Tim hadn’t figured out how to make a bulletproof fake identity profile – not yet, at least – And he certainly wasn’t going to get caught trying to gain illegal access to WE on a sub-par fake ID. Because there were all kinds of ways that would go poorly for him – between his parents possibly being disappointed in him enough to hire a live-in Nanny to the legal ramifications he’d face, even as a minor, it just wasn’t worth it.

           But the thought of getting an up-close look at the new tech WE was rolling out still made Tim's heart pound like he’d just downed a full pot of coffee. WE took a very different approach to developing their tech than DI – more of a ‘you know what would be cool? can we make that reasonable?’ philosophy than a ‘how do we solve this problem?’ sort of thing. Tim found the both the WE approach and their results utterly fascinating.

           Not that Tim had been allowed to play with much of DI's tech, being that his parents would hear about him attempting to gain unsupervised lab access, and promptly ground him, and anyone who might supervise treated him like a kid far too young to understand or unobtrusively observe the work going on inside the places he wanted to see.

           So, the fact that a spectacular spread of WE tech was set up in the basement of a rather glaringly unsecured staff only area in the very building Tim’s class was touring stood as an open invitation for Tim to investigate.

           An invitation that Tim took very seriously. He’d spent at least 18 hours over the past week examining the museum’s blueprints – courtesy of the Gotham City Hall Public Archives – And the rundown of the security, both in terms of the human guards and staff on-hand and the electronic countermeasures – via close examination of the extensive repertoire of ‘insider access’ videos on the museum’s own webpage. Tim would probably end up sending the museum an anonymous suggestion about adjusting that at some point, but he’d worry about that later.

           After he used it to his tech fantasy fulfillment advantage.

           For now, he simply slipped away from the unwatchful eyes of his teachers, stuck headphones in his ears, and carefully made his way – casually, calmly, and like he had no destination in mind – over to the hallway by the cafeteria near the east wing gift shop. The hallway that had restrooms and a staff-only door halfway down it. A door secured with a heavy-duty machine-lock, with a ten-digit keypad, but a door that was not alarmed.

           The human guards were always more focused on preventing shoplifters from stealing over-priced – for a good cause, but still over-priced – museum memorabilia than on the high-traffic restroom hall by the cafeteria. Using his headphones as an excuse to tap his fingers to keep count – while his eyes and most of his brainpower focused on evaluating targets – Tim tracked the museum employees on their lunch breaks and calculated the best option to use as his ticket backstage. He had some in mind, but he had contingencies for last-minute adjustment.

           Tim settled on a big guy whose name he’d read on staff profiles but had forgotten with the other useless information provided about his role in the marketing department. What Tim hadn’t forgotten about him was that his department’s office was right by the staff door he was eyeing – 4.5 meters down and to the left, to be exact – which meant that, even with his slow stride, he would be behind another door in the hallway approximately 17 seconds after the door Tim needed closed behind him.

           When Mr. Marketing got up and lumbered over to the trash, Tim sidled over towards an informational sign with a museum map. As Mr. Marketing passed him, Tim counted off 4 seconds before he turned around to follow. He slid his hand into his pocket and wrapped his fingers around the u-shaped metallic magnet he'd had to smuggle in by jamming it into his mouth and using sleight of hand to pretend it was his retainer – Less than sanitary, but effective, and he’d taken an extra vitamin this morning as a precaution.

           Mr. Marketing punched in his code and pulled the door open to well over 90° before he lumbered through the gap. Tim kept his pace consistent; patient, he could be patient – even though it made his heart rate kick up uncomfortably as he put his faith in his calculations instead of in his feet. He reached the door with almost 6 inches of clearance left for him to slide his hand in and clip his magnet into place over the latch.

           The door closed as he withdrew his hand and kept walking, but it did not click.

           The machine lock whirred with an attempt to close, but its components struck the flat surface of his magnet and failed to properly secure the door. Had the door been alarmed, that would have drawn a lot of unwanted attention, but as it was Tim made it to the restroom with almost nothing noticeably amiss.

           The restroom was crowded enough that his entrance didn’t draw attention and he shut himself in one of the stalls to count off exactly 10 seconds. Then he washed his hands, acquired a paper towel that he did not immediately dispose of, and went to retrieve his magnet. The paper towel allowed him to grasp the handle without leaving fingerprints and he retrieved his magnet without incident – opening the door onto an empty hallway and promptly swerving right to access the unsecured stairwell he knew would be there.

           Tim had no way to hide himself from the singular security camera watching the hallway, but the area was so highly trafficked that he doubted any security guard had been monitoring closely enough to spot his detour. He would get in a ton of trouble if he was caught here – phone calls to his parents would be unavoidable and they’d likely be so angry at him they’d fly back from Spain a week early. But he’d almost certainly avoid any kind of legal consequences.

           Besides, he wasn’t going to get caught. He’d planned this too well for that.

           Tim made his way through the less convenient passageways in the museum’s basement until he reached the corner of the sub-basement where the WayneTech exhibit was being staged. It was, as he’d known it would be, isolated and completely vacant of staff.

           A smile split his face as the relief he felt in making it there successfully was quickly replaced by the buzz of unadulterated excitement. He set his backpack down carefully – mindful, as always, of his precious camera. Then he rolled up his sleeves as he stepped closer to the first machine he saw with the WE logo stamped proudly on its side.

           According to the signage prepped in the binder sitting next to the behemoth, it was a component of the quantum computer WayneTech was developing to facilitate physically interactive virtual realities. Tim bounced on his toes as he warred with himself – half wanting to read more about the technical specs and half wanting to dive right in and see it for himself.

           Tim made it through another two pages of engineering details before he gave up and literally tackled the machine to hoist himself up high enough to look inside via the glass panel built in for that specific purpose. There were at least a dozen windows in the casing and Tim wondered – for a brief moment of distraction from the tech itself as he clambered higher up its exterior – how the museum was going to work in ramps and such for visitors to get the best views. If he didn’t get arrested tonight or banned from the museum forever, he might have to come back to see it in its full glory.

           He’d finagled his way to the last protrusion from top and was marveling at the neat rows of complicated wiring laid out below him when something crucial changed: he discovered that he was not, in fact, alone.

           “Ya know, I don’t think you’re supposed to be down here.”

           Tim really wanted to pretend he didn’t yelp like a kicked puppy when the sudden voice scared him half out of his skin, but the basement echoed enough for him to know it would be ridiculous to think the newcomer hadn’t heard him. Tim ducked his head in shame as his ears burned red and he turned to face whoever had caught him with hunched shoulders and guilty hands raised in surrender.

           And then he spotted his accuser on the floor and froze.

           It was Jason Peter Todd.

           Jason Peter Todd – Bruce Wayne’s new ward and the new Robin. And also kinda Tim’s neighbor. Well, as far as the word ‘neighbor' applied when your respective estates were so big it took an hour to hike door to door. Tim’s brain got caught in a loop of wondering what the frack Jason Peter Todd, of all people, was doing at the museum on a Thursday afternoon. Was doing down here, in this particular sub-basement, on a Thursday afternoon.

           Tim had fully been expecting to see the new Robin today, but that was when he was in full costume and wasn’t supposed to be for at least ten more hours. And Tim had not – in any of his contingencies – planned for Robin to see him.

           “Uh, hi,” Tim floundered.

           “Hi,” returned the crime fighting teenager Tim idolized and had been planning to stalk through Coventry later today. There was a glint in his eyes as he stared up at Tim with a smirk.

           They stared at each other in silence for way longer than could possibly be considered reasonable and Tim's ears resumed to burn at that, and at the distinct realization he had no idea what to say next.

           Because what exactly are you supposed to say when Jason Peter Todd catches you red handed in an off-limits part of a museum? Sitting on top of a piece of cutting edge computer engineering that you had absolutely no right to touch?

           “You're Tim Drake, aren’t you,” Jason asked – in a way that was definitely not really a question and also made it clear that Jason was laughing at him. “We met last month at the charity gala. I’m Jason.”

           “I remember, Mr. Todd,” Tim spouted, falling back on the robotic safety net of manners his mother had drilled into him. “Um, what brings you here?”

           “It’s just ‘Jason’, kid.” He jerked his chin at the machine Tim clung to, continuing, “That shit’s WayneTech. B sent me over to make sure it’s got all the right bits with it.”

           Tim nodded like a puppet, trying not to drown in his horror as he realized what it meant that Jason had caught him. He was messing with tech that Batman owned. There were probably a hundred undetectable BatSecurity features on this thing. Robin had probably been sent to see if someone was trying to steal it when one of Batman’s invisible alarms had gone off.

           “How about you, kid,” Jason asked, his hands shoved deep into the pockets of his cargo pants. He regarded Tim with openly amused parody as he asked, “What brings you here?”

           “Field trip,” Tim responded automatically.

           “Field trip?” Jason echoed with an incredulous chuckle.

           He stared at Tim for another long moment and Tim stared back, terrified and unblinking and too tongue tied to substantiate his claim.

           “Alright then,” Jason said eventually, with a one shoulder shrug inside his leather jacket. “So, you got yourself stuck up there or are you gonna come have lunch with me?”

           “Lunch?”

           “Yeah, ya know, food. You eat it,” Jason explained. “I know I could use some pizza.”

           Tim frowned – at the confirmation of the non-sequitur of lunch plans, not the various insults attached to it.

           Jason seemed to falter briefly. “You actually stuck up there, Tim?”

           “No,” Tim huffed, willing to admit he sounded slightly petulant about it.

           “Well then get your skinny ass down here,” Jason prompted – a beat too late in a way Tim didn’t quite understand. He blinked, trying to puzzle out what didn’t sit right, but Jason arched an eyebrow – in the way Tim had seen him do as Robin, magically managing the expression despite the mask – and Tim realized he was supposed to be doing something.

           He was already in enough trouble as it was, so Tim scrambled down the computer and found himself face to face with the second Robin. Or face to chest, as it were.

           Tim hadn’t hit his growth spurt yet, so he knew he was a scrawny twelve, but he hadn’t thought Jason would be that much taller. Jason was only two years older and he was stocky to start with. It was different when he’d been in the suit he’d worn for the charity gala. In civvies he looked broad and strong, and he stood up straighter.

           Jason pulled one hand from his pocket and threw his arm around Tim’s shoulders – began dragging him towards the exit. Tim lunged for his backpack as they passed it and clutched it close to his chest as Jason continued to drag him back upstairs.

           They ended up in the west cafeteria, in a corner that Jason had clearly selected for it’s state of semi-privacy. It was crowded and public enough to make raised voices problematic, but private enough to discuss sensitive details without much worry of being over heard. And it was neutral ground, like Jason was trying to make Tim comfortable before hashing out exactly how much trouble he was in for touching Batman’s stuff without express permission.

           Jason had acquired a large pizza, dripping with extra cheese and a blanket of peperoni, and two double-thick paper plates – one of which he piled high with three slices and placed in front of Tim. He gave himself five slices and settled down to chat having somehow already inhaled half of a sixth.

           “So,” Jason started around a mouthful of food as Tim poked tentatively as his own serving, “Some people are saying you’ve got some sort of connection to the Batman.”

           Tim frowned, his gaze snapping up to evaluate Jason.

           He’d spoken quietly, conspiratorially – like he wanted in on a secret Tim had. Like he wasn’t about to threaten to hang Tim by his thumbs in the depths of Batman’s secret lair for the rest of the foreseeable future.

           Awareness that Jason didn’t know that Tim knew his vigilante identity sparked inside Tim’s brain. He might be able to get out of this. If Robin didn’t know then Tim was only in trouble for touching the quantum computer because Batman didn’t want anyone touching it, and Jason was limited in how he could exact vengeance because the wrong move would reveal his role as Robin. All Tim had to do was talk his way out of this.

           Tim could do that. Right?

           All he had to do was figure out how.

           “I’m sorry I touched the quantum computer,” he blurted.

           Probably not like that.

           Tim hunched down into his shoulders and poked again at his pizza to avoid eye contact with Jason. His ears began to burn again as he felt Jason staring at him.

           “Shit, kid,” Jason said, after swallowing his bite this time, “You’re not in trouble.”

           Tim’s finger paused mid-poke. “I’m not?”

           “Nah,” Jason promised. “Fuck the Man.”

           Tim blinked. “Then why are you talking to me?”

           Jason blinked. A sort of confused expression that was vaguely pitying flickered across his face. Then he reiterated, “’Cause I hear you know who the Batman is, ya know, under the cowl.”

           Okay. So, Jason didn’t know he knew, but he suspected.

           Tim could work with that. Probably.

           He took a bite of pizza purely to keep himself from blurting anymore unhelpful apologies and attempted to calculate the best response.

           “Nobody knows who Batman is,” Tim said eventually.

           “But you’re a fan, right?” Jason nodded at Tim sweater – at the big black and yellow R embroidered on the left-hand side of the red-wool knitwork. Mrs. Davis had made this sweater for him, before her kids had insisted that she retire from babysitting rich Gotham kids and go be a grandmother in the safety and comfort of their town in Florida. Mrs. Davis had been one of the very few people who had supported Tim’s moderately obsessive interest in Batman and Robin.

           She hadn’t really understood, but Tim missed her – missed being able to talk about it.

           “You’ve gotta have some theories,” Jason was saying, his voice persistent enough to pull Tim back out from inside his own head.

           “I don’t have any theories,” Tim said. And it was true enough. He’d had theories. But that was before. Now, he had evidence. Another bite of pizza kept him from saying that out loud.

           “Seriously? None?”

           Tim shrugged and counted the circles of peperoni left on his first slice. Nine more circles, fifteen more bites. His stomach was already wary of the food he was putting in it. If this interrogation lasted more than ten bites, Tim’s stomach would probably begin to protest.

           Adamantly.

           He peeked up at Jason. Who was somehow already finishing slice number three.

           “Then why’s the word on the street that you’ve got insider know-how on ole Batsy?”

           “I dunno,” Tim said with another shrug. Truthfully, the question was bothering him too.

           Tim had never been seen when he’d staked out a spot to catch the dynamic duo on patrol or in the midst of a big bust. Never. They would’ve confronted him then and there if they’d ever found him with a camera full of very clear photos of them in action.

           So, how did Robin know enough to suspect him?

           “Who’d you hear it from?”

           This time, Jason shrugged. “I dunno. People. But like seriously, you don’t have any fucking idea why someone would think you know Batman’s real name?”

           Tim shook his head silently. He wanted to save his pizza for the questions that really needed him to have something to do with his mouth other than blabbing out his secrets.

           “Huh.”

           Jason’s eyes were narrowed, not quite threateningly, but pressingly – like he wasn’t quite sure a threat would be appropriate, but he was certain that Tim wasn’t telling the truth. It was another look Tim had captured him using as Robin. A kind of gentled-down BatglareTM for Robin to use on uncooperative victims instead of how Batman used his on uncooperative criminals – because victims could be uncooperative for all kinds of non-criminal reasons.

           Tim suddenly understood why it was so effective.

           He squirmed in his seat and caved to the need to take another bite of pizza.

           But he wasn’t a victim. Was he?

           Suddenly, Robin’s presence at the museum seemed a lot more suspect. It made sense for Robin to be there because Tim had triggered some sort of invisible Batalarm on the quantum computer, but he’d gotten there way too quickly for that to have been what brought him to the museum initially. He’d’ve had to have already been inside the building.

           But why?

           Tim’s class had been scheduled for this museum trip over a month ago. He’d even talked about it briefly with Bruce Wayne himself at the charity gala he’d attended with his parents – that’s how he’d known about the WayneTech exhibition far enough in advance to plan effectively to sneak down to the basements.

           “When’d you start hearing that rumor?”

           Tim’s question was so sudden and loud in his own ears that he startled himself.

           He seemed to have startled Jason too – who was starting on pizza slice number five and appeared to have been in the middle of a sentence when Tim had jolted into questioning him.

           “Uh, about a week ago, I guess,” Jason explained. “Your name had come up a few times before that in regards to you being a fan, but it wasn’t too long ago that it changed to you having special access or some shit.”

           Tim nodded absently.

           Two weeks ago, there’d been a major drug bust in a neighborhood just over half a mile away from his school. Batman had been tipped off about the drug ring in the same way Tim had: kids who came to school high rode the bus home and the chalk marks on the benches at the stops used by the kids who were using weren’t terribly sophisticated code.

           Tim had snagged some really spectacular shots the night that bust went down.

           Several of Tim’s classmates had exhibited symptoms of withdrawal shortly after that. A few of those students – namely some who’d never seemed to be able to have a civil conversation or simply let Tim pass in silence – had stopped exhibiting those symptoms a few days later. Tim had assumed they’d found a new dealer.

           Maybe they’d needed to find something more valuable to trade too, to make up for getting their old dealer busted.

           Info on the Bat who’d busted them would be pretty valuable.

           Even just a lead on info would’ve been valuable. Tim had been outright stalking Batman and Robin for over a third of his entire lifespan, at this point, and only just recently figured out who Batman really was. And he was a verified genius who’d happenstantially acquired the right life experiences to recognize things like quadruple somersaults. Who’d circumstantially idolized and stalked two different costumed acrobats for several years before he realized they were actually the same person and begun to extrapolate from there.

           Nobody knew anything about Batman.

           A tip on someone who might, would be very valuable indeed.

           Tim was being interrogated by Robin because he was a victim. He just hadn’t been victimized quite yet.

           Tim dropped his pizza like it’d burned him and began to rifle through his backpack for the new cellphone his mother had bought him when school started. It was ‘so he could fit in with his peers’. It was too big to fit in his pocket and he’d never liked wearing a watch, so he’d had to dig to find it and figure out the time.

           It was 4:32pm.

           Shift change for the guards was in less than an hour and they were already definitely antsy for it. Most of the science staff were already heading home to beat the traffic, and most of the new guards wouldn’t be coming in for at least another twenty minutes.

           If Tim were going to lead a team to invade this place and capture an unwilling potential asset, he would do it in the next ten to fifteen minutes.

           “We have to get out of here.”

           Jason frowned, his confusion pronounced with wary unease. But he demonstrated a willingness to trust Tim at his word for no other reason than Tim wanted him to and clambered to his feet. He took his last slice of pizza with him though – and nabbed the two untouched pieces from Tim’s plate as he followed.

           “What’s wrong, Tim,” Jason asked, carefully nonchalant. His hands were full of pizza in the way Tim’s mouth had been to stop him from doing what he wanted to do when asked a stupid question he should’ve known better than to answer – Tim suspected that if Jason wasn’t holding onto the pizza he’d’ve grabbed Tim’s shoulder at this point.

           Tim didn’t know how to answer at all, let alone efficiently communicate what he’d deduced about their current situation. Especially not without revealing that he knew Jason was Robin and could guess why Robin was here talking to him to begin with.

           Jason was rapidly eating though the pizza that was keeping him from grabbing onto Tim’s arm to stop their not-so-subtle scramble towards the museum’s main exit. They made it to within sight of the doors before Jason had inhaled the last piece of crust, and Tim had probably ignored several unheard comments and questions about their rapid egress, when Jason finally lost the battle to avoid physical contact and wrapped his hand around Tim’s elbow.

           Tim swung around to face him as his inertia asserted dominance.

           “Timmy, what’s got you so spooked?” Jason asked. “C’mon. You can tell me. Anything. I won’t rat on you, even if it’s something bad. Lemme help.”

           “I can’t – it’s not – You don’t,” Tim could practically feel the whine building in his voice at all the false starts that his brain attempted to send through his mouth to make the act of communication happen. His brain apparently thought it worked something like magic.

           Tim was frustrated and embarrassed and still very acutely aware of the fact that they needed to get out of the building. Right now.

           And Jason was doing the Robin look, the other one – the one for the scared little bunnies of the victims they came across that needed to be soothed and calmed and promised that they had a friend somewhere in the cold cruel world. Tim knew why it worked – felt it working on him – and yet he was mortified that Robin thought it necessary.

           He wasn’t a bunny. He was an asset. Currently being targeted.

           Recentered, he focused and forced words to come out of his mouth intelligibly.

           “We have to get out of the building.”

           Jason had moved to holding onto both of Tim’s shoulders at some point – holding him steady, holding him still. He looked Tim right in the eye and asked gently, “Why?”

           The words got jammed up in Tim’s throat again and he squeaked.

           And then the museum’s windows exploded inward with a dramatic shower of glass and gunfire as more goons than Tim could count began to repel their way inside.

           Tim closed his eyes and winced at the bite of regret on how fracking close they’d been to getting out of this without any major complications.

           “That’s why,” he groaned.

-----

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[foulserpent]

hey you’ve kept mantids right... do u have any care tips for a beginner? i’m picking up my first babies next week ( two texas unicorn nymphs ) and i’m pretty confident in my abilities, but mantids are one of the few inverts i’ve never had before so i figured it’d be worth it to ask around !

ill just list some things that i DONT see on mantis care guides

mantises are very stupid and one of their key instincts is that if they grab something in their claw in a predatory strike, they will not let go and will try to eat it. my mantis paladin is currently attempting to eat the feeding tongs which are in one claw, while the mealworm is in the other. theyll eventually figure it out and stop doing that, but this means DO NOT HOLD THEM WHILE YOU FEED THEM, and if you feed them out of their cage make sure its not near anything that could potentially be dangerous if a dumb insect mistakes it for food. i did that a few times because i am also very stupid and both of my mantises have tried to eat me (GREEN BEAN succeeded in drawing blood).

both of my mantids got sick as nymphs and i would find dark smears of mantis vomit on the sides of their enclosures. a lot of mantid sources call a certain illness “the black death” or etc but i think its fairly common for non deadly vomit problems to occur. their health improved with their enclosures being cleaned and being fed some diluted raw honey (not sure if it actually works but people swear it has antibiotic properties). also id strongly advise not feeding them crickets, that seems to be a general consensus among mantid keepers and in my experience most of their health problems occurred when they had crickets (i keep mealworms). i hear some people suggest cockroaches instead but im skeptical that theyre less likely to catch something from roaches because mantids ARE most closely related to roaches but thats my untested opinion.

if they escape, check your ceiling. GREEN BEAN escaped only once and paladin escaped like 5 times and 5/6 of those times they were in a corner on the ceiling in my room. if they dont have their wings yet check the sides of tall objects like a dresser or whatever. if you know they were in their cage only a short while ago, obviously check around there first, but when they escape they will sometimes just go nuts (i found paladin on the opposite end of the room when she was a nymph which is a massive distance when you cant fly). the trend is they like to be in high places and they like to be sideways or upside down, so thats where you want to look.

another one is if your mantis isnt eating or cant properly use their claws, or is a wuss and gets scared of their food, one almost guaranteed way to get them to eat is cutting their prey and putting the guts on their mouthparts. that will induce them to start feeding . i dont see a lot of people talking about this but its a really important thing to know if you have any issues.

paladin has eye rub that didnt heal in her final moult, and is impacting her vision and makes catching prey difficult, so most of the time i snip the mealworms head off with scissors and poke her face with the guts and shes like “AHHHH THING IN MY FACE oh wait food”. here she is being confused because she grabbed the feeding tongs and her tiny brain cant process whats going on. if they have an injury that prevents hunting or they just wont hunt because theyre a wuss, this is a pretty good workaround. ive heard of people whose mantids lost both of their raptorial claws in a bad final moult but lived full lives being fed this way

[gizmosisbuttons]

Episode 4 was a fandom wide callout post.

all you fools too busy being pissed bc Coran went all show crazy and basically re-characterized the paladins to what the masses found entertaining, to notice that the entire episode was literally a fandom wide call out post. they literally called us out guys. 

lets go over the list of things Coran said/did in ep 4 and compare them shall we?

let me preface this by saying he literally wasn't himself and i still love him just as much as before, my gorgeous man.

”I worked up very specific personas for each of you. This is going to help the audience connect on a much deeper level with each team member.” 

as if they didn't already have defining personalities that make them very likable and awesome? sounds familiar right? its one thing to speculate and theorize based on what we know about a character especially if we don’t know a lot about said character. the writers put a lot of time and effort into developing these characters and even said during an interview once that one of the things that bugged them about og Voltron was that the only properly developed character was Keith. the other guys didn't get a chance to be loved. and that was what they aimed to do, to give every paladin and character the chance to be loved. since the beginning the fandom has been bad at this. taking one teeny trait from each character and twisting them so that the only thing that matters is that trait. 

         “lover-boy lance”

throughout the series lance is known  to flirt with...pretty much every cute alien girl. of course. hes handsome, charming, girls love him. Coran wipes away all of the actually relatable things about his personality in favor of this charming flirt who would win over girls. Lance is insecure, he’s witty, he is the freaking sharpshooter, the teams sniper and their glue. he’s voltrons right hand now for a reason. he got into the garrison which is a military space exploration base, not just anyone gets in. hes incredibly intelligent and a great pilot. amazing really. bc simulations are always absolutely terrible and rarely help. oh yea, and hes charming.but god forbid anyone forget that hes a flirt. who cares about the other stuff that will actually help the audience connect with him. 

        “science wiz pidge” 

its no secret that pidge is incredibly intelligent. she is one of the characters who haven't gotten their developing points until this season. in one of the first flashbacks we learned she nearly gave up studying because some kid decided to be a dick and bully her. Matt pulled her out of it and encouraged her to work hard. later on in ep 4 coran says that her science doesn't need to be factually correct because noone will understand her either way. he undermined her intelligence because . well. noone cares what she says as long as it sounds smart. fanfic writers do this a lot. like. a lot. i understand that you may not have the same knowledge that the girl who hacked herself into a military school base undercover at he age of 14-15 (if the theory that the garrison is a high school program is correct) because she had gotten banned for sneaking in and hacking into the computer system, but if you really do insist on focusing her on her smarts, do some research. no to mention. pidge may be the youngest, but she really is more than science and calculations. shes intelligent yes, but she can hold her own in battle (at the age range of 15-17 with no prior battle training), shes afraid of the possible reality that all her efforts are wasted and Matt and Sam are dead, she is actually pretty social with the paladins (she can even be seen hanging out in the kitchen while hunk makes glass cookies.) and beyond her intelligence, shes wise. shes not just random science facts, she knows how to hold her own in situations outside of battle and books. shes street smart. 

       “lone wolf keith”

now i know this was said to allura, and ill get to that. but if the keith vlog showed us anything, its that  hes not just a moody loner teenager.  i am very guilty of this myself. i portray keith as a human disaster. we don’t know hen he was left alone, we don’t really know much of his story. i head canon that his dad left him to fend for himself but every month woul drop off food or money or something. i head canon hes terrible about taking care of his body. but at least i don’t call him moody and move on.  i give him a background to fill in the blank space, but sometimes i forget and focus too much on his folded arms and  pouty face. he smiles. he laughs. hes an actual precious bean.  but hes also afraid of being pushed away. hes guarded and does his best to be strong. he hides his feelings and protects his heart with everything he has. (geez boi who hurt you). he is not the human embodiment of “teenagers” by mcr. aka he has feelings too. not to mention he also got into the garrison, and was the top pilot regardless of how he got in, if it happened to be by recommendation like most people think. 

      “humourous hunk”

as a hunk stan this one annoys me the most. throughout the episode hunk is consistently embarrassed, and even protests the fart noises, fart jokes, etc. he is purposely tripped for laughs. the fandom forgets that hes not just the fat funny guy, or just the personal chef. hes overcome so much since babies first lion flight, he used to get sick, constantly had to be the voice of reason to keep his teammates out of trouble,  he is just as intelligent as pidge and is actually one of the only people that can keep up with her science stuff. keith and lance even stated that they didnt understand anything they'd said. hes a fantastic engineer even if he had a few tummy mishaps. hes an amazing pilot too, and extremely sassy. he and pidge probably rigged the game console to work in space, And hes pretty friendly and cautious. he is NOT meant to be the comic relief. (say it louder for people in the back)

     “shiro the hero”

a lot of the fandom has taken to calling shiro daddy, sexualizing him (”now put on this tight shirt”) and focusing on shiro and only shiro (shiros the “favorite character” of corans little show). hes great. he really is. and the man needs a break. voltron is a kids show. he isnt meant to  be sexualized, none of them are. hes more than his arms and his leadership abilities. the biggest issue i have with the whole shiro thing. regardless of if hes a clone, when shiro returned he cut his hair differently, and wore short sleeves. everyone i know, including me, said they'd be fine with the clone if he had kept his hair long and “as much as i love the arm view” and didnt change his outfit. its a kid show. his body shouldn't matter.i am also guilty of this, and ep 4 opened my eyes to it. coran lifted shiros arm as if to prove that thats what the audience really wanted. he treats shiro differently bc hes the real star here and everyone should know it. ofc, hes the black paladin. (i wonder where the whole “the black paladin is the only one who really matters here” mindset came from. looking @ u ‘84). shiros may have ptsd, and hes constantly trying to hold himself together for his team, and its obviously not easy. maybe thats why hes got a cute white floof. the stress. 

      alluras erasure  

another point that always bugged me. the fandom either forgets allura exists, or that she is just stealing lances place temporarily. Allura is the blue paladin. while keith is gone, she is not filling in. shes a paladin now too. for coran to call her keith, and constantly call her keith, even though she obviously has a few choice words to say about it, its distrespectful. she says his plan is working and he replies with “why thank you keith...i like to keep you in character” once again, erasing her existence. now im not as well versed in this particular topic, but id like you to keep in mind that he talks to his princess with that mouth, and that she IS the princess and not a fill in while keith leads. feel free to elaborate on this more. 

     coran “fires “ team voltron. 

this. i find extremely entertaining. remember that legal trouble last year bc of the leaks? and right around that time the klance shipper started threatening them if they didn't make it gayer and put keith and lance together? the  fandom, who wanted all of this to happen their way, were threatening to get it cancelled and such just because things didnt go their way. shiro, the leader, disagreed with coran and tries to shut him down. and coran in fit of rage says:

you're a bunch of quitters! quitters! i’m a visionary! i have thoughts, ideas, i dont need you anyway. ill rewrite the show, get rid of the whole lot of you, replace you with new paladins! and the show will be better than ever before!...except for you shiro, ill never get rid of you, you're our most popular character!

this is essentially what the fandom was saying. now, was this definitely their plan, to call us out with this bit, in not sure, but honestly, its almost too coincidental.

the writers have made it clear that they heard us, and have always been listening. and really, thats why i love ep4. you're angry because you know you got called out but haven't admitted it to yourself. the writers do their best to bring us the best show possible, but they cant satisfy everyone. why cant we just be happy about Actual Meme (tm) Matt, and look forward to season five instead of fighting them because we got our shit handed right back to us. weve gotten a  taste of our own medicine, so chill. i enjoy them keeping us on our toes, surprising us with every turn, theyre great writers.who cares if one or two things pissed you off? we both know youre not gonna stop watching.

[theday]

minpuppy day

its 8pm here, and his birthday is almost over. im listening to day6′s stream rn and im ready to type out my essay 4 lmh 

this got so long and its a mess without proper sources whoops!!!!

SO FIRST OF ALL... lee minhyuk!!!!! the kindest boy on earth and also the most extra lmao

tbh i only became a mbb in late august so i was only present for the last 2 ep of mxray but with everything else, i had 2 catch up rip.. i watched the first episode of season 2 first bc im a dumbebe and it was the cafe/nail salon episode ?? yeah. at that point i didnt know any of them and i couldnt recognise anyone except for jooheon bc i started liking jh first i was just super confused with everyone else, minhyuk included. nobody really stood out when i watched it but i still found it extremely funny (mx are so funny every show theyve been on i always laugh its great i love it) was the next episode the party one ?? (nope) i dont remember but i dont think i focused on anyone at that time either but i noticed how minhyuk was so fucking extra with how he would give kh + hw false clues and i was like .. ‘this guy is seriously..’ and when changkyun plotted with them to abandon mh i was cheering for him tbh LOL and i got so scared for ck when minhyuk found out sbwjaiks idk ive never talked about first impression for mxray so im gonna side track a bit (a lot) and?? the way he played everyone and eventually himself (and changkyun) was so funny wtfeksmk we love an idiot?? in the animal episode, i didnt take notice of mh (again) bc he was with jh and i was 2 focused on him poor mh and mary LMAO i think throughout my first watch of mxray i didnt have that much of an impression of minhyuk other than that he is super extra?? watching their older shows like ‘right now’ and the des??koptac??? fk if i know im a fakebebe i think he grew on me more?? 

but the time where he really impacted me and made me fall for him was when i watched no.mercy?? the way he gave the flower to the judge (i lov EHR SO MUCH) (the male judges can ***** x) it really gave me the impression of how sweet minhyuk is?? and i remember when he got second last and he cried i felt so fucking bad? he loves his parents so damn much???? minhyuk is really out here being the best son/friend/group mate?? AND despite that he worked together with the other guy (im so sorry) and they did a wonderful stage?? the way minhyuk lightened the mood after the performance showki gave? that made me really think because people gave minhyuk the title of mood maker you know? and just based on that i could truly see why and after that im so happy minhyuk is with monsta x (ill talk abt this later) and im pretty sure he was the one who lost since it was like a battle (work together with your partner but youre also fighting against them) and i know how they like messed the thing up didnt they? and they told him he won but they announced the wrong name minhyuk didnt even let that get to him? he had the biggest smile on his face even though he lost? i love lee minhyuk so much?? he was happy because he and his team mate managed to show such a good performance and that makes me so proud??? 

it was probably at that point where i really started to see minhyuk as who he is??? he has a lot of sides to him honestly and i dont know all of them but from what i can see minhyuk’s just great?? i was also starting to fall deeper for monsta x as a whole and that meant finding out about past incidents and watching old vlives,, i saw ppl mentioned about how minhyuk would be there for wonho throughout his harder times?? and i watched the video where wonho actually thanks minhyuk (and other members) about that and you can just see how supportive minhyuk is of wonho? hes always there for him and not just wonho, minhyuk’s always with everyone although it is different every era?? he shows so much love to all of his members and its ?? amazing??? minhyuk’s like everybody’s support system and im jsut so!!!!! minhyuk ur doing amazing sweetie :-( 

right now back to the thing i said i said id talk abt later which is now so. i was watching the last ep of no.mercy (where they select who gets 2 debut) and i knew who were gonna debut obviously but it was still so fucking nerve wrecking???? honestly? you could see the shock on minhyuk’s face when he gets chosen as the last member. idk what he was thinking but it really hurts to think that minhyuk probably thought he wouldnt be able to get in? (i also have no idea how no.mercy works and im still a bit skeptical about it, was it all planned? etc.) and just the surprise and disbelief really??? goD ??? mh probably felt really bad about being chosen despite have 2 other suitable ppl next to him i kind of think minhyuk sometimes doubts his abilities??? back on weekly idol too where they asked him how he managed to get in and they (hyungwon?) answered with passion like?? i dont know :-// this whole para is a joke tbh bc of how much i dont trust no.mercy lol so disregard it?????

what i wanted 2 say though was how without minhyuk, i dont think monsta x would be able to be how they are today. as much as i hate to say this, performance & song wise, there wouldnt be much of a difference because of how little lines minhyuk gets (which is understandable, still makes me a tad bit mmMPH) however, the presence on shows would change so much??? minhyuk helps bring out everyones sides on shows? and maybe he doesnt and im just being bloody delusional but i believe that minhyuk plays a super important role whenever mx are on any kind of show because he’s able to ?? i dont know??? he can see whenever one of the members are feeling uncomfortable/not talking enough and he goes to them/asks them stuff im pulling this out of my ass actually ah . i dont fucking know i dont have any sources nd this is all from my shit ass memory so if u do read this and realize how inaccurate it is im sorry but thanks 4 reading lmao 

basically . minhyuk plays an important role in monsta x as more than a vocal but as a person who’s always there for his members 

ANOTHER THING. we all know of when minhyuk speaks english?? like he doesnt have to because theres changkyun but he does it anyway?? again, idk if he does it bc he wants 2 lessen the burden on changkyun (who cant speak english that well - same) or because he wants to connect with more intl fans but its sweet either way?? and its really funny the way he translates stuff too lmao 

i already saw someone else talk about this but its something i noticed too though it didnt really click unitl i saw their post about it,, back on like the radio vlive he would do with kihyun he was always setting goals for the vlive and everything but in the recent vlive with kihyun (again) he assured mbbs that they didnt need to press hearts and that they should focus on the vlive (was this mentioned or assumed???) idk but we can think he probably means that even if it was unspoken.. it really shows how much minhyuk’s grown??? he went from asking for hearts to making sure that mbbs could properly watch the vlive instead?? minhyuk really looks out for others ? when he picked out the stuff kihyun didnt like too??? he didnt even to think twice about doing it he just did it immediately?? minhyuk is so fucking sweet and he just??? thinks about the others ??? always being there for them and everything????

minhyuk is also so sososososo nice to fans? i watched that one video where he gave fans his like towel because they didnt have umbrellas and it was raining/?? yeah sure maybe thats like. basic fan idol stuff but it really says a lot about minhyuk??? he didnt have an umbrella either but he still wanted to make sure they wouldnt get sick????

in these past 2 months, ive learnt that minhyuk is more than extra, hes someone who cares for just about everybody??? he was the last member selected for monsta x but he’s constantly improved himself since then and im so proud of lee minhyuk?? so shoutout to the boy who loves his members and monbebes like theyre his family and shoutout to the boy who loves his family so much. happy birthday lee minhyuk and thank you for being born :-D 

also its 9pm now lmao and day6 are doing their last song im happy this has been fun so bye now