#in a vacuum its a very nice skin if a bit basic

[avedoodles]

pitcher fang ⚾️💫

[another-dr-another]

insert those coins babey! no point in holding onto them if they aren't used !

You Now Own:

001 - Mineral Water (x2)

Drawn from the ocean depths and rigorously purified. Ideal for a modern on-the-go public unsatisfied with tap water.

002 - Sea Salt

A basic seasoning produced from the evaporation of seawater. It also sees use as a preservative.

003 - Ration

A set of canned and vacuum-sealed foodstuffs. The taste isn't bad, and a certain snake that wants to play hide-and-go-seek is just crazy abou- wait, what?

005 - Ramune

A sweet, lemon-flavored carbonated drink. A marble plugs the opening of the uniquely designed bottle. The bottle can also be reused if you bring it to the ramune store.

010 - Ship In a Bottle

A intricate creation, a model ship within a bottle. Made with time, love and care.

012 - Envy-Enducing Envy CD

A CD of songs by Japanese band Envy. Full of unreleased tracks/first recordings.

014 - Children's Book

A children's book about family and forgiveness! The plot is about a sister who can't get along with her younger brother, but they find common ground and bond over causing trouble for their parents.

016 - Sour Soda (x2)

No flavor is listed on the bottle other than sour, which may just be a flavor in and of itself. It's a near black shade of blue... I think.

017 - Gentleman's Guide

A book that's meant to help shape you into the perfect gentleman. However, it's rather demeaning towards the reader, which doesn't feel very gentleman-ly.

018 - Masculine Cologne

Very masculine, can only be used by masculine people. No weaklings allowed, or people with the common sense to smell it before purchasing, and realize it smells really bad.

019 - Fancy Sword

True to it’s name, it looks very fancy, and very intimidating. However, it's only for show, and rather blunt- perhaps inexpensive?

022 - ??? Alcohol

It's something alcoholic. This is a school, it should be confiscated, and you won't be receiving any more information.

024 - Hair Cutting Scissors

Snip snip snip, meant for hair-cutting at home, as these aren’t professional grade. Still though, try and make it even, okay?

025 - Purple Hair Dye

Pretty purple hair dye guaranteed to not come out of hair for weeks! More of a pinkish-purple than the box advertised, but still pretty.

028 - Constellation Skirt

With patterns matching actual real constellations. Despite matching the night sky, it almost seems sun-rise themed, with its pink background and pale gold stars.

030 - Bottled Tea

When heated up, it's meant to help soothe upset stomachs, and muscle aches. Popular among student athletes.

031 - Alarm Clock

It's a digital alarm clock. One of the few normal and functional things here, and it's the thing that screams at you to wake up every morning.

032 - Broken Stopwatch (x2)

It won't stop running, no pausing or restarting. You can however make it record different laps.

034 - Baseball Cap

Perfect for keeping the sun out of your face! This one is all black though, so it'll retain a lot of heat.

038 - Card Game (x3)

One easy to play, and popular among kids. The front side of the package shows a family of four playing.

039 - Reminder Booklet

A small pamphlet that gives reminders for daily things, such as eating, drinking, taking meds, etc. Also has room for you to add in unique personalized reminders.

041 - Tiovita

A Japanese energy drink sold at most convenience stores. Pretty inexpensive, and with a nice fruity flavor- but hey, only one per day!

044 - Lie Detector (x2)

Fun for the whole family! Though not incredibly accurate... wait, how do you know that?

045 - Evidence Encylopedia

A book focusing on evidence found in crime scenes. From most overlooked to most common, this book talks about it all.

049 - Track Award

A award from a middle school track and field award. The recipient of the trophy seems to have come in second in two events, and first in one.

050 - Plane Tickets (x2)

Anywhere, anytime, round trip tickets. Probably given as some sort of thank you for volunteering to get off of a accidentally over-booked flight.

051 - Therapy Advertisement (x2)

Some therapist endorsing themselves. Upon looking at the services they offer, I don't feel very inspired to go there.

056 - Soulmate Sweatshirt

A sweatshirt that supposedly brings the most comfort not when you wear it, but when holding someone wearing it. Currently smells strongly of... lavender?

057 - Scrap Metal x3

Seems to be broken bits and pieces of some sort of engine. Could be repurposed, or simply a cool trinket.

059 - Old Journal

It seems to be from the late 80s, and kept being written in up to the early 90s. There's a entry on the last page, synopsizing the birth of the owners son, and how proud the owner is of his now five year old.

060 - Paper Boat

A piece of paper that's been folded into a boat. Apparently you can fold and tear it as you tell a story to provide a visual aid for the story, but no one here knows how.

061 - Calendar

It's got pictures of internationally famous towns on it! This particular one has been written on with a note on almost every day.

064 - Face-paint Kit.

A professional face-painting kit. However, it’s missing it’s red, yellow, blue and white paint- those colors have been all used up.

065 - Life Quote Sign (x3)

A sign with some stereotypical life quote written on it in flowery lettering. Most likely to be seen hanging in a kitchen.

066 - Throwing Rings (x2)

Meant for fair games. If you have good enough aim, maybe you'll win a prize!

067 - Pleasant Savior

Seemingly a CD filled with various performances by the same person. I haven't played the CD, so I don't know what kind of performances he does though, and the name is off-putting.

069 - “Fresh” Bouquet (x3)

Somehow still smells sweet with flowers that look flawless. It's comprised of roses that have been dyed rainbow, all of them.

070 - Hair Ribbons (x3)

They come in a variety of colors, but the Monomono Machine only dispenses yellow. Guaranteed to make the wearer feel a certain sense of self-satisfaction.

071 - Girls Profile

A student profile from a all-girls academy. The paper is water-stained and some of the ink has run, so it's hard to make out what's on the paper.

073 - Baby Doll

It seems to be from around the 90s and... not quite well-loved, but well-played-with. Doesn't come with the original clothes... or hair.

075 - Dream Catcher

Made by a past SHSL. It's actually been pretty effective, and is part of the reason they got scouted.

080 - Retro Game

It's handheld, old, and extremely broken. The screen has been shattered so it displays wrong, all cracked and distorted.

081 - Blackout Curtains (x2)

Completely block out any and all light. Strong enough to plunge a room into darkness.

084 - Noise-cancelling Headphones

They completely block out all sound! Also come with the ability to adjust the size of the band, and will stay on your ears even if you pull the band down to your neck.

086 - Wall Decals

Stickers you can put on your wall. They do a decent job of covering up holes in said walls.

087 - Antique Stuffed Animal (x2)

It seems to be bunny themed, and dressed in clothes you'd see on babies in the 1930s. It's in pretty good shape, other than a few tears where the lace trim at the end has had it’s stitches removed.

088 - Embroidery Kit

Or rather, a needle and thread to be used for embroidery. There's only one needle, and one spool of thread, but hey, it’s something.

090 - Scented Markers (x2)

A full rainbow set, all with their own unique smell! Be careful though - it's hard to get these out of clothes.

092 - Fake Christmas Tree (x2)

Too plastic to be a real tree. It's also incredibly small, but real trees can be small too, so that doesn’t really mess with the realism.

093 - Hair Gel

Top of the line hair gel, and completely unopened! Helps you style your hair and keep it in place, but doesn’t give it the nicest texture.

095 - Instant Noodles

Just add water to get something hot, salty, and/or spicy! A nice meal if you're looking for something that's quick and easy, you can dress it up some too.

097 - Drink Mix

A powder used for ??? warm drink, made with milk, tastes like... something? You try it and tell me, but it smells good at the least.

099 - The DSM-I

Self-explanatory, it's the original version of the DSM, from 1952. Index cards have been slipped in-between most of the pages, talking about what happened with the information listed there.

100 - Collection Of Old Ads

Dating back to the 1920s. A magazine full of ads from a different time, it’s somewhat of a miracle the paper held up while the ideas in it didn’t.

101 - Wooden Ruler

It's a wooden ruler. Used for measuring things, nothing else- why do you ask?

102 - Building Blocks (x3)

Stacking and stacking, and sending it all crumbling down. And then you rinse and repeat.

104 - Cutesy Hair Clips

Snap clips in pastel colors and covered in designs. Oddly enough, there isn't any non-pastels, unless you count the few white clips.

106 - Newspaper Collage

Seems to be a collection of snippets from newspaper articles. There must be hundreds in here... it's a big collage.

107 - Cropped Sweatshirt

Cropped specifically due to a parent saying not to. The sweatshirt seems to be related to some organization, with the big fancy emblem on it.

109 - Pins And Patches

A mix-and-match bag full of enamel pins, buttons, and iron-on patches. Good luck finding something to do with them all.

110 - Origami Paper (x2)

Simple origami paper, in a variety of colors and patterns! Comes easy to tear out of a book, which includes instructions on basic origami types.

112 - Colorful Band-Aids.

They come in many colors, designs, even different sizes. Some seem to be made to cover up paper cuts, others meant to help skinned knees and scraped elbows.

Thank you for visiting the Monomono Machine!

~*~

Maeda, narrating - And I thought the coins were kinda heavy...

Maeda - What now?

[Free Time Event - Uehara]

{Head to Your Room}

[danwhobrowses]

One Piece 1000 - 10 Confessions as a One Piece Fan

Although we did the Initial Thoughts a week ago (a long week ago, damn) which you can read here I wanted to do something for the official release of One Piece’s 1000th Chapter At first it started out to be ‘10 things I wanna ask Oda that I don’t think we’ll ever know’ but I couldn’t think of 10, then I was gonna do a General opinion post about it, but didn’t want it to come off too negative. So I am settling on a confessions post, which will have elements of these anyway.

So as we have a happy 1000, let’s talk about some stuff I usually don’t get to talk about in One Piece

Note: There will probably be spoilers so make sure you’re up to date

10. Late Beginnings I think the first confession I have to have is that despite being older than One Piece I am unfortunately not a ‘Day One’ fan. In fact I think I mainly got into One Piece around mid-Whole Cake Island arc, before I had of course known about One Piece, it was a ‘Big Three’ anime after all but the most I knew about it was that they had a guy named Luff-y and another called Zorro, and it was about ‘Pirates who can’t swim’. My curiosity only developed when in a youtube deep-dive of anime clips I kept being recommended One Piece clips, and decided to give a couple a go. Most of them were Paradise arc stuff from the anime, the dub voices were mostly atrocious so I stuck to sub. I was happily surprised about the amount of fun and emotional weight these clips gave me, which led me to check where One Piece was as of current and backtrack from there (Ironically I did the same with Beastars). I did eventually get caught up around the time of the Mafia Meeting and I’ve kept up with each chapter since.

9. I mostly still prefer the Pre-Timeskip looks When I first felt this I thought it to be pretty controversial, nowadays not so much. I understand that Oda wanted to change the look for many characters but some of them did feel like a downgrade. I think the ones who got it worst was Franky, I think it’s the bulbous shoulders, Franky was no stranger to body horror from Enies Lobby to Sabaody but I kinda preferred that he still had a lot of his humanity rather than looking like an action figure. Otherwise I think Robin, Nami and Chopper had it bad, maybe Brook too but his was more fashion than design; the women in general took heavy hits by Oda’s proportion design - I mean I get it boobs are nice but proportions are what make them better - but Robin also underwent a skin color change in the anime, who pre-timeskip shaded her skin darker than in the manga and corrected it to match the manga, I think most of us would’ve preferred Robin to have kept the darker skin tone and possibly even the fringe, Robin’s hairstyle (and her fashion in general) can be hit and miss. I go to and fro about Nami, other than the general waist and bust adjustments I think it fits her character to use her sexuality a bit, she was no stranger to that pre-Timeskip, sometimes though I can’t tell whether I preferred her with short or long hair (Short was definitely better on Nojiko), I do think though that Oda could have her show less skin, she is still very pretty in outfits such as Water 7, Thriller Bark and even her fake pirate disguise in the early chapters/episodes. Finally with Chopper I think it was a bad move to alter the hat, that was a memento from his father figure Hiriluk, it’d be like if Luffy altered his straw hat or Zoro replacing Wado Ichimonji, I do also feel that the design for Chopper’s points while easier to draw don’t look as good, I think a lot of it is the scruff, or lack thereof in favour of smoothness, Walk Point is fine but Heavy Point, Guard Point and Horn Point seem less threatening, Monster Point especially too, in Enies Lobby he looked like a cave painting of menace and destruction, now he’s smoother and his scruff lighter so it’s not as good. The rest of the designs I’m quite fine with though.

8. I wish some markings stuck as well Tattoos and Scars seem to be optional in the One Piece world sometimes, unless it’s branded in molten heat like the Dragon’s hoof, Sun Pirates logo or an attack from Sakazuki. While Nami’s redesigned tattoo has stuck around and Luffy and Zoro’s scars persist, they are mainly character reminders/mysteries for huge moments in the story, and I kinda wish that some of the Straw Hats had littler markings, not just scars either. For instance, the Alabasta X on the arm, I really wish that stayed on each of the Alabasta characters’ arms since it was a symbol of friendship with Vivi, I also wish that Luffy kept the 3D2Y mark on his arm. In terms of scars though it would’ve been nice to see the characters a bit more battle-worn; Zoro’s ankle scars from Mr. 3 have faded and frankly he should be covered in little and long scratches given his fights with Mr. 1 and 2 years of Mihawk Training, Nami’s shoulder scar is hidden completely by her tattoo and she has no scars on her hand (from fake stabbing Usopp) or foot (from blocking Miss Doublefinger), Usopp himself could’ve used some small scratches because lord knows how there’s even still bones in his nose plus he was in murder island for 2 years, Chopper could at least have a small bald patch from when his shoulder was impaled and burned by Shura’s fire lance too, other than that there’s just Jimbei’s potentially missing shoulder scar from Marineford, though Oda has kept it obscured a lot so maybe that is still there. I understand why Oda doesn’t or forgets to, but it would’ve been nice if we lived in a vacuum of no time limits and whatnot.

7. Dead End Adventure is my favourite One Piece film I don’t know what it is, but Dead End Adventure just gives me the most fun out of the One Piece films. It has a good side plot and the side character Shuraiya was a blast of a character. Granted, Gaspard wasn’t too good of a villain side for actually harming the straw hat and his defeat was a bit underwhelming but the race, the settings it was all fun. It is not to say I don’t enjoy any other One Piece movies, I delight in the horror fuel of Baron Omatsuri - and that killer final punch - and Z’s tragic tale of a fallen marine, Strong World has that epic entrance to the party and Stampede also had some great team up moments and fantastic writing for Usopp and Smoker but Dead End Adventure always feels like the movie I could watch in any mood.

6. Skypeia and Fishman Island are some of my favourite arcs While I can understand the criticism of the Long Ring Long Land arc (especially since the anime dragged out the Davy Back Fight) it surprised me that people found Skypeia and Fishman Island arcs to be boring or less entertaining than previous arcs. Everyone has their preferences of course but I felt that Skypeia and Fishman Island were very powerful arcs especially with the theme of racism. Both had glorious setting design different to the common customs of the world we had seen, Oda made both Skypeia and Fishman Island feel very much lived in with its own budding culture and prejudices, with a villain who was dead set on destroying everything just to have their way. With Enel and his priests we were able to push several characters to newer limits, with Robin showing her fighting capabilities, Zoro learning his projectile slashes, Chopper having to endure fighting 3 priests and even Usopp growing all the more braver in the face of seemingly indestructible opponents and later gaining access to the dials. With Fishman Island it was different because it was basically a ‘flex arc’: where the main villain is meant to be a stepping stone rather than a threat but even then the symbolism of the enemy is what’s significant with them, the inherited hatred of humans. But at the same time we do learn new strengths from the crew; Red Hawk, the use of armament Haki, Skywalk, Hell Memories, Franky Shogun, Usopp’s pop greens, Nami’s weather eggs, Brook’s Soul Solid and his new DF power (which is possibly an awakening), as well as the first true steps of Jimbei joining the crew. The biggest strength of both arcs is the flashback as well, like Wano would in present time both arcs demonstrated that Oda can carry a story without his main characters and still keep it as captivating as ever, be it the friendship of Noland and Calgara, the tragedies of Otohime and Fisher Tiger or the life of Kozuki Oden and the man who would be Pirate King. And the impact of Fishman Island and Skypeia’s flashbacks both come back around in Dressrosa with the dwarves and Koala, and Fishman Island really does kick off the whole Yonko saga with Luffy challenging Big Mom, these arcs were definitely significant as they were entertaining with silly faces, strong fights, challenging themes, lorebuilding, good side characters and unique twists. And the overall message of healing from the past is still significant to this day. Through Wyper’s sacrifice and the Bell ringing to Jimbei giving blood and the Ryugu royals wanting to attend the Reverie, it is all very powerful stuff and while the arcs are similar in nature its their similarities that make me love them. Also the cover stories with Enel and Gedatsu on their own mini adventures are fun

5. I really want to know where Ghin is Ghin/Gin was such an interesting character in Baratie. Given that this was right before Arlong Park too so we had not seen a character conflict with different loyalties in One Piece until then, his gratitude to Sanji against his loyalty to Krieg created a fantastically complex character, but then he left and we didn’t hear about him ever since. Did he survive Krieg’s poison gas? Is he still with Krieg? One reactor of the episode said “maybe he’ll become the next Don” which was a concept I kinda really liked. The guy was pretty strong given that he had bested Sanji at that time, and since he didn’t appear in a cover story my mind does wonder. It’s not just Ghin either, a lot of the early East Blue characters kinda fell off the map; where is Morgan? Last we saw he was sleeping as he sailed past Jango, where is Kuro? For someone wanting to resume piracy after some years off he has been very quiet, where is Krieg? Only Arlong and Morgan were arrested and the latter escaped so the rest of these characters are a mystery. Recently in Wano I am still wondering where Law’s crew that he brought to Onigashima went, as well as Caribou - where is that slippery bugger?

4. Basil Hawkins is probably one of my Top 5 Supernova There’s something about that dude I gravitate towards, which makes it quite frustrating when the anime decides to add extra malice and creepy faces to him. Hawkins in Wano is still a victim, if anything he is simply a prisoner with better working conditions, if he thought he could survive escaping Kaido he would but he doesn’t so he won’t, he’s also gonna feel sore about Drake betraying him and letting Law cut him up, so it annoys me that Hawkins is seen like a villain. Not only does he have an extremely interesting Devil Fruit and creativity with it but he’s also audaciously confident in his fortunetelling, even Luffy ran from Kizaru at Sabaody while Hawkins looked at his cards while Kizaru was about to boot him to holy hell and said ‘nah I’m not dying today’, you gotta respect that moxie. At the same time though as a pirate he has that shades of grey element, he’s okay with letting some of his crew be disposable and we don’t even know to what end, he doesn’t look like a guy too concerned about being Pirate King or having riches. I also get a good laugh in that his hobbies are interior design, it makes me really want to see what the inside of his ship looks like. I think as a top 5, I have Luffy, Zoro, Law, Hawkins and then Kid, Bege, Killer and Bonney are not far behind with Apoo dead last because fuck Apoo. Kid and Killer are cool but I do feel like they need a bit more character, Bege earned some points in being funny and his care for his family in WCI and then there’s Bonney - I really hope we dig into Bonney’s significance, she feels really important and that mystery keeps her fresh whenever we see her. Drake too has only really started to become interesting because of SWORD, we could still see more fleshing but for now he is like bottom 3. It’s a shame Urouge has to be so low, he’s not bad but he’s not spectacular either, gotta admire his hobby of lovemaking though, you do you Urouge.

3. I don’t think that either of the ‘Most Beautiful Women in the World’ are the Most Beautiful Women in One Piece The in-world consensus seems to be that the Most Beautiful Women in the World are Boa Hancock, Komurasaki and Shirahoshi, and granted they are very pretty, but the most? Not for me. I mean, y’all know that Nico Robin, Nami and Vinsmoke Reiju exist right? Makino as well is stunning, as are Tashigi, Bonney, Margaret, Ishilly, Nojiko, Vivi, Rebecca, Pudding, Perona, Cosette and I’m sure a few others, realistically I think they could all give them a run for their money. I get how for those three their beauty is a plot point (Boa it’s drilling home Luffy’s obliviousness to it, Komurasaki it’s the swerve of her not being awful and for Shirahoshi it’s due to Vander Decken IX pulling the creep factor on her) but it would’ve worked the same way without the ‘world’ hyperbole I think. As much as Oda is iffy with proportions and rarely writes women with as much attention as the boys he sure knows how to make them attractive.

2. Some of my favourite individual Straw Hat scenes aren’t in Canon If I were to have a top 5 moments of each character, it may surprise you that some of it comes from movies or filler episodes, particularly Sanji’s flexing on Jessica in the G8 Arc (in fact, Jonathon is one of my favourite marines, T-Bone is in there too, but I don’t have room to fit that). Some are of course obvious because of how iconic they are but it does go to show that sometimes filler isn’t all bad. Since you’re probably curious: As a Group Goodbye Merry [Enies Lobby] Entering Shiki’s Palace [Strong World] Walk to Arlong Park [Arlong Park] Entering the Grand Line [Reverse Mountain] vs a Stuck Oars [Thriller Bark] Jimbei Giving Luffy Blood [FMI] Vagabond Drill on Big Mom [WCI] Leaving the Big Mom Pirates [WCI] Returning in Wano [Wano] Trying to argue with Luffy [FMI] Brook vs Chess Soldiers & Big Mom [WCI] Flashback [Thriller Bark] Breaking Mother Carmel’s Picture [WCI] Baron Corpse vs Dog Minks [Zou] Hysterically laughing at seeing Duval [Sabaody] Franky vs Senor Pink [Dressrosa] Playing with the Kids [Punk Hazard] vs Fukurou [Enies Lobby] Freedom Roller [Wano] Trapping Caribou in the Barrel [FMI] Robin  I Want to Live [Enies Lobby] Clutching Spandam [Enies Lobby] Throwing Usopp under the bus [G8] vs Yama [Skypeia] Clutching Tequila Wolf guards [Amazon Lily] Chopper Monster Point [Enies Lobby] Flashback [Drum Island] Chopper Man (& Minoru Kazeno) vs Usobada [Chopper Man Special] Don’t blow the whistle: Immediately blows whistle [Skypeia] Dr Chopper the definitely Human Doctor not wearing fake glasses [G8] Vivi w/ Karoo (she counts okay!) Goodbye speech [Alabasta] Escaping Bon Clay [Alabasta] Karoo Digging Luffy Out [Little Garden] Luffy Fan Club Meeting [Reverie] Slapping Usopp awake [Drum Island] Nami vs Kalifa [Enies Lobby] Standing by the kids [Punk Hazard] Saying goodbye to Bell-mere [Arlong Park] Helping Luffy vs Cracker via Lola’s Vivre Card [WCI] Luffy WILL be Pirate King [Wano] Sanji ‘I needed a light’ [Skypeia] Flexing on Jessica [G8] Saving the Vinsmokes [WCI] O-Soba Mask [Wano] vs Doflamingo [Dressrosa]  Usopp Alabasta speech [Alabasta] Awakening Observation Haki [Dressrosa] Sogeking Theme Song [Enies Lobby] vs Perona [Thriller Bark] Saving Luffy from the fire [Stampede]  Zoro Nothing Happened [Thriller Bark] vs Ryuma [Thriller Bark] vs Mr. 1 [Alabasta] vs Gyukimaru & Kamazo [Wano] “He’s sweeping our floors that fiend!” Test of Luck [Loguetown] Luffy ‘On the Sea, you fight Pirates’ [Wano] Red Roc [Wano] vs Katakuri [WCI] Haki clash with Doflamingo [Dressrosa] Punching Saint Charloss [Sabaody] I will have to say that for some characters I could go to 20 so if one’s missing it may’ve just missed the mark, such as Usopp and Nami vs Enel or Luffy putting back a Zombie or Stealth Luffy, I mean it is 1000 chapters as well as movies and filler episodes/specials...

1. I’ve learned quite a lot due to One Piece Since my fascination started with a deep dive of checks, I did start to learn a hell of a lot more not just about the franchise itself (you know it’s almost catching up BATMAN on total sales, which has been around more than 3 times longer?) but I also learned a lot about stuff Oda has used as a reference key; folklore, actual pirates, actual practices, the amount of detail Oda puts in is astounding. Which does lean into another thing I’ve learned, One Piece has changed the way I approach some of my ideas for writings and whatnot, before I would be afraid of either spoonfeeding or being too vague, Oda’s mastery not only in storytelling but character development, character quality and pacing has both helped and intimidated me a lot of times, I mean consider this: it took hundreds of chapters to get a proper backstory on Luffy, the main character, how unprecedented is that? Often I could fall into the trap of making sure you knew everything about the main character from day one but now I wonder about what’s necessary for the now and what can I work on. Another thing that both inspires and intimidates me is his drawing, I suck at colours and still do, and a lot of Oda’s attention to detail is incredible considering he’s gotta whip that out on the weekly, but at the same time you see some of his rough sketches and they’re pretty similar to a rough sketch of my own, so in a way it’s a ‘there’s still hope for you’ moment seeing those. I can’t say I’ve learned Japanese from listening to One Piece, but I have picked up on some stuff, some hiragana there, some phonetics here, I also appreciated some of the stuff kaizokuou-ni-naru does (I won’t tag them in case that’s a bit rude to do it out of the blue but check out their tumblr) when it came to deciphering the Japanese of chapters and the little puns and hints Oda puts in his native tongue. And of course any One Piece fan has learned one thing above all else: Patience. Oda himself included, it took over 20 years to get to 1000 chapters and we still have plenty of questions to ask, plenty of islands to see and thus plenty of chapters to go. So Straw Hats off to you Oda, and a happy 1000th!

[iamcayc]

The Sounds of Gojo - Chapter 3

Chapter 3: Exchange Rating: SFW Word Count: 4292 Relationships: Gojo x OC (Kaya)

read here on Ao3

To say that you’re going to murder your cousin would be a vast understatement. Not only did you explicitly tell him to come pick you up after work promptly at 3:30 PM, but you also reiterated that you had zero interest in putting up with Gojo’s shit when you’re still feeling like you ran a marathon after being squashed by an elephant. It was a very reasonable request, and you had worded it very clearly to avoid any potential miscommunication.

So, one could imagine your immense disappointment and rage at the sight of white hair... and that smug-ass grin?

Kento Nanami is dead to you.

“Hey there, teach.” He’s wearing Ray-Bans today, his hair framing his face in a way that makes him look more youthful—and much to your chagrin, more attractive.

“Heard you could use a ride to collect your bike from the school, so I generously offered my services.” You notice that some of the girls are staring at him unabashedly, making you roll your eyes. Sexually-repressed teenage girls around Gojo is a terrifying thought, so you quickly usher him off the grounds and towards the front gate.

“What’s the rush?” he asks amiably. “It’s a nice day, after all. Wanna go get some donuts? There’s a new shop around here that I was thinking about trying.”

Your arms are folded across your chest as you glower at him. “Why are you really here?”

He pouts prettily at you. “Huh? Aren’t you happy to see me?”

“Why on earth would that be my reaction to you showing up unannounced at my work, again?”

“Well, I still owe you compensation for helping me out last night.” He shrugs as he faces you. “Plus, I thought we had some chemistry going, but maybe I misread the banter. I mean, you brought up my dick the other night—”

Knowing full well that you won’t make actual contact, you cover his mouth with your hand anyway.

“Take me to get my bike so I can be rid of you sooner rather than later,” you hiss. His mouth stays covered until he nods, but your hands don’t make it away unscathed. No, just before you can yank your hand back, Gojo grabs hold of your wrist and you freeze. Not because he grabbed your wrist, but because you can actually feel his skin against yours.

He’s dropped Infinity, just long enough to stroke his thumb across the sensitive patch of skin inside your wrist. He makes actual contact just long enough to brush his surprisingly-soft lips against the back of your hand, all the while maintaining unwavering eye contact.

If you aren’t so stunned, you know your panties would be soaking wet at the intimacy of the moment.

But you are stunned, so you wrench your hand out of his as if burned.

Gojo simply smiles at you before gesturing at the sleek black car parked behind him. “Figured you’d want a ride, rather than warp.”

You sigh and head towards the car, shooting Kento a text.

You 3:30 PM What the actual fuck, Kento

kento-bro 🥐 3:31 PM I did NOT tell him to pick you up. I explicitly told him that the idea was a terrible one and would likely end with me dead. You can imagine his reaction to that.

You could, and you tried not to glare at Gojo as he held the door to his car open for you. The vehicle interior is surprisingly spotless; with his lackadaisical attitude, you expected random junk stuffed into the center console, at the very least.

It also smells just like him, sending a traitorous tingle down your spine.

“Are you cold?” Gojo asks as he slides into the driver’s seat. “I can turn on the heat, if that’ll make you more comfortable.”

You shake your head, tucking a few lavender locks behind your ear. “I’m fine, just a random cold chill. I’m surprised you even both to drive.”

Gojo shrugs as he starts up the car. “No reason not to learn. I’m more than just my techniques, you know?”

It isn’t as if you only saw him as a sorcerer.

Based on the flood of pure heat that you nearly drown in as he shifts the car into reverse and immediately places his right hand on your headrest, looking over his shoulder to pull out of the parking spot, you see him as a red-blooded man just like any other.

And that is something you intend to keep to yourself.

“So, have you decided?” he asks conversationally. Your irritation with him clearly doesn’t matter in the slightest, which only makes you exhale slowly. Traffic is touch and go as you try to make it out of Shibuya, so might as well make the most of the drive.

“You didn’t trigger an asthma attack, and me nearly passing out was due to my own idiocy, so I guess I’ll settle for a bottle of a decent red blend,” you reply as you settle into the passenger seat. Chill EDM and instrumental music hums its way through the car’s speakers from whatever satellite radio station he’s tuned into, your finger absently tapping along with the beat against your thigh.

“Hmm.” You feel his gaze on you for the briefest moment as he continues to drive. “I think I can make that happen. Seems like a pretty lackluster request, considering I practically gave you a blank check.”

You roll your eyes. “What did you think I was going to ask for?”

“I don’t know. Something more exciting, like a date, or even a kiss.”

“Sure you aren’t projecting a bit?” You cock your head a bit as you look at him. He’s got one hand on the steering wheel, the other resting on the shifter. Your brain tries to reconcile the tall, charming, sexy as fuck man sitting next to you with the arrogant, pain-in-the-ass sorcerer that grated your nerves like no other. You can’t say why he rubs you the wrong way; it could be his carefree attitude towards absolutely everything, or maybe his continuous assumption that he can charm the pants off you, literally and figuratively.

Either way, it boils down to the simple fact that you don’t trust if and when he’s ever being genuine with you, or anyone, really.

“Would it really be so bad for you to admit you find me attractive?” he wonders aloud.

“I have no problem admitting you’re attractive,” you reply with a half-sigh. “It’s honestly a little disorienting, but then you start talking and all the allure just gets sucked right out, like a nasty little vacuum.”

“Why are you and Nanamin so mean to me?” Gojo whines. He makes the turn onto the campus, easing his way towards the parking lot where you had left your bike the night before. “Here I am, just trying to be nice...”

He parks the car right next to your Triumph, turning to face you with a pout. You simply stare at him, trying to decide how to best to inform him that he once again lost his head in his own asshole.

“Maybe if you tried to just be sincere instead of nice, people would stop being so ‘mean’ to you,” you point out. He pushes his sunglasses up and into his hair, regarding you with somber blue eyes.

“Would that work on you?”

You can tell he’s asking you seriously. The pitch of his voice has dropped, abandoning the air of frivolity and slipping into a velvet soft baritone that sends warmth through your center. It’s a tone you haven’t heard from him before.

“Yes.” Your mouth is spitting words faster than you can censor them. “I’d trust you, at the very least.”

Gojo leans towards you, his expression painfully neutral. “That’s important to you, isn’t it? Trust.”

His proximity to you, speaking to you in that lower pitch… it makes your heart thunder in your chest. You know there’s absolutely no way Gojo can’t hear it—it’s practically pushing out of your chest. What had been basic attraction is suddenly inching its way out of that easy to manage category and into dangerous territory.

Your brain doesn’t get the memo.

“Yes, it is,” you reply, your voice barely a murmur. “When you get fucked over enough times, trust issues develop. A basic psychological fact, as far as I’m concerned.”

He turns this information over in his mind. You can see the thoughts sinking into the vault behind his eyes. Gojo can be a brat on a good day, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t brilliant or observant.

“Can I have your number?”

You blink, reeling from the whiplash of his question. You fully process the moment and realize his charmer’s grin and bubbly tenor are back. The moment of honesty is gone.

A scoff is forming in your mind when you catch Gojo’s eyes again. The dissonance between the honesty swimming in the azure blues of his eyes and the mask he’s presenting is so clear, it takes you a second to quell your retort and hold out your hand.

His mask softens just a fraction as he gives you his phone, but his eyes never waver. You only break the stare to glance at his phone while you enter in your number, calling your own phone to save his number before handing the device back.

You’re typing out his name when you see a text come through from that number.

Unknown Number 4:18 PM this is Satoru, fyi 🤗

The use of his name feels intentional. You focus your energy and let your aura slip along the edges of his, luring it out for you to see. It’s a halo of cerulean blue, humming softly to you.

Your fingers hover over your keyboard for a moment before you save the number under just Satoru.

“I’ll text you when your bottle of wine’s ready,” Gojo says brightly. “But you have to promise that you’ll follow the instructions I send, too.”

That sounds like a trap and you immediately narrow your eyes as you start to exit the car. He just drops his shades with a too-innocent smile. Bickering with him wouldn’t end up being productive, so you just shake your head.

“Thanks for the ride, Gojo.” You step out of the car and unlock your bike, the tiny bit of anxiety you have about leaving it unattended somewhere unfamiliar easing away as you zip up your leather jacket and pick up your helmet.

“Hey, teach.” You see that Gojo’s window has rolled down as you swing your leg over the bike. “Ride safe, alright? Let me know when you get home, too.”

You can’t help but smile a little. “What are you, my dad?”

His smile turns feline. “Why, feel like calling me ‘daddy?’”

Your eyes can’t roll harder than they do right then. Refusing to deign that with a response, you snap your visor shut and take off back towards your apartment in Yoyogi.

The moment he let you past his Infinity replays in your thoughts the entire ride home. The feel of his skin against yours felt so… nice. The internal cringe at the lackluster adjective is unavoidable. It hasn’t been that long since you’ve had sex, for fuck’s sake. Are you really that starved for attention that you’re willing to play with the giant bonfire of fuck-boy that is Gojo just to satisfy your curiosity — among other things?

You ease your bike into your garage and head back into your safe space. Shedding your jacket, you glance at your phone before you move into the kitchen to start dinner.

Satoru 4:53 PM what perfume do you wear??

Satoru 4:53 PM also, have you made it home yet??? 😰😰😰

Your brows knit at his first question as you pour yourself a glass of wine while last night’s takeout reheats.

You 5:09 PM Just got home. Why do you want to know about my perfume?

Satoru 5:10 PM whew, i was worried!!

Satoru 5:10 PM it smells lovely in my car, the same way you did when i carried you into your place last night. call me curious 🤔

Suspicious, that’s what you’d call him. You let the text sit while you stir your leftovers, distracted by the sense of a blush forming on your cheeks at the thought of him enjoying your perfume in his car as much as you enjoyed his scent.

“And those are the thoughts of a complete weirdo,” you mumble as you stick your leftovers into the microwave for another minute.

You 5:12 PM It’s called Wisteria Blue by Nest

Ordinarily, you’d have silenced your phone and left it somewhere beyond reach to completely disconnect while you unwind from the day. And ordinarily, you’d have your attention focused on some murder docuseries instead of thoroughly grading assignments.

Yet, your phone remains face up and on ringer as it stares at you from the coffee table. You’re half-paying attention to the new show on a crazy cult in the States during the 1980s while nibbling on leftover fried chicken and rice, your peripheral honed in on the screen of your phone and diverting your focus like a fucking teenager.

And, just like a teenager, your stomach flips when your phone chimes and lights up again.

Satoru 5:22 PM do you trust me now?

You 5:23 PM Not completely, no. but I am more inclined to try and trust you

You 5:23 PM Besides, not all of us have Infinity to ward off folks we don’t want hurting us

When he doesn’t immediately reply, you attempt to refocus on your dinner. It’s not like you think Satoru plans on hurting you; that moment in the car before you left gives you a tiny bit of peace of mind there. No, your reactions are purely automatic defense mechanisms, ingrained into you after years of gaslighting and emotional manipulation.

Nope, not going to think about all that. You turn up the television to drown out your own thoughts, just as your phone lights up again.

Satoru 5:31 PM got any good stories about nanamin? 😈

The cackle that bubbles up is pure petty bitch. Boy, oh boy, do you have stories? Since you steadfastly believe that the white-haired demon’s appearance in your life is all Kento’s fault, you feel absolutely no guilt in arming his friend with some solid ammunition.

You 5:33 PM Did you know that he’s terrified of moths? Not like, ew that’s gross, but little girl screaming terrified. He’s even had nightmares that they suck his face off if one lands on him

Satoru 5:35 PM you’re my new favorite person 🤣🤣

----

“It’s getting there, you just need to pay attention to your tempo, Ichigo.”

The third year frowns at her hands, as if their lagging is under someone else’s control. You smile at her, squeezing her shoulder gently.

“Don’t be too hard on yourself,” you tell her kindly. “It’s easy to get wrapped up in how your music makes you feel that you lose sight of little things like your speed or technique.”

“Does that happen to you, when you play, Ms. Nissen?”

An iron curtain drops on the memories of performing that her question pokes at. Instead, you just keep smiling, though it’s lost a little bit of its warmth.

“I don’t play too much anymore, but yes. If my heart is driving me to play, even I lose sight of my tempo,” you reply as you stand up from your perch by her keyboard station. You glance around the room, pleased to see that some of the girls have started to get a head start on cleaning the room after their check-in.

“Great job, all of you,” you say loudly over the low cacophony of music. “Don’t forget that your reports on your chosen pieces are due tomorrow at the start of class.”

With that, the girls go about their daily chore while you collect your things from the podium in the corner. As expected, you see that you have a string of messages from Satoru, which makes you smile a little, despite your best efforts.

Satoru 2:02 PM what made you want to be a music teacher?

Satoru 2:03 PM and why do you have sound proofing in your apartment?

Satoru 2:10 PM i’ve been to the states a few times. where did you live while you were there??

The last few days followed this pattern of intermittent texts from a perpetually curious Satoru, his questions rarely relating to each other as he fires them off during school hours. You understand his students’ dismissive attitude about his authority over them, especially if he’s on his phone most of the time.

You 3:11 PM I’m surprised you haven’t coerced Kento to tell you all of that 🙄

Your warning shot of the moth story did its job, bringing your cousin to his knees for forgiveness after Satoru released a few dozen moths in one of the classrooms while locking Kento inside. The pair of you reached a truce, agreeing to have dinner again this Saturday, without Satoru.

Satoru 3:12 PM he’s still not talking to me 😅

You 3:13 PM I always had a thing for music, since I was really little. My parents decided to capitalize on it and got me all kinds of private lessons… piano, cello, violin, voice, etc. When I decided to stop performing, I didn’t want to leave it totally behind, so I decided to teach.

Satoru 3:16 PM how did you avoid using your technique? it had to have shown up by then

You 3:17 PM Kento would teach me bits and pieces of jujutsu when I visited over the summers, but before he even started going to Jujutsu Tech, all my feelings and intentions were directed inward, rather than to my audience

You slip your phone into your backpack and put on your helmet. There is plenty about jujutsu that you don’t understand, and you wonder if anyone truly does, but you’re still grateful for Kento and Yaga. Without either of them, you’d have drowned in your own self-loathing.

It occurs to you that you haven’t seen Yaga in awhile, so you decide to pay your respects soon. Maybe he would have some tips on how to manage a certain snowy-topped idiot.

After locking up your bike, you drop your things on the couch and head straight upstairs to your bathroom. A hot shower sounds blissful, as opposed to finding out what other questions Satoru has in store for you.

The steaming spray soothes your tense shoulders as you consider the chessboard of conversation in your head. You’re used to answering personal questions with the bare minimum information needed, but Satoru isn’t your average pedestrian poking around. Besides, it doesn’t escape you that you’ve played the trust card, only to be a perfect hypocrite in terms of honesty.

You sigh as you work shampoo into your hair. The simplest solution is to acknowledge that there are things you aren’t ready to talk about, which is always so much easier said than done. A coil of anxiety tightens in your stomach but you dismiss it.

As you dry off, you make a mental note to dye your hair again soon. The color is fading a little too close to silver for your liking, and the last thing you need is for Satoru to start saying that you’re trying to steal his look.

Dressed in only boybriefs and an oversized sweater, you pad back down the stairs to fish your phone out of your backpack.

Satoru 3:29 PM what’s with the sound proofing then?

Satoru 3:43 PM did you die? do i need to come do a wellness check? 😱

You roll your eyes as you plop onto your sofa.

You 4:03 PM I didn’t die. I got home and showered, and didn’t feel like bringing my phone along

You 4:03 PM I put up the tiles to dampen any sounds I might accidentally make at home. Sometimes I start singing along to my Spotify, or hum while I bake. It’s just for my neighbors, really.

Checking work emails keeps you from watching his typing bubble from bouncing. There’s an upcoming faculty meeting that you pray has nothing to do with the school festival that’s coming up in a couple months. Last year, the girls in your class tried to convince you to perform in their faculty talent show — to the point that you had to dodge them in the halls in case they tried to use the power of their puppy-dog eyes.

Satoru 4:06 PM ooo… i bet you smell amazing. should have invited me to join 😏😏

You 4:06 PM Why’s that?

Satoru 4:07 PM i could have helped you wash up the hard to reach spots! instead, i’m just daydreaming about it instead of training the kids

You 4:08 PM Somehow I doubt me in the shower is what’s really preventing you from doing your job

Satoru 4:09 PM why are you so mean to me??? 😭

You 4:09 PM I’m not mean. I’m honest 😇

Satoru 4:10 PM i don’t believe you’re an angel for one second. no self-respecting angel rides around in tight pants and a leather jacket on a motorcycle, especially not one with a voice as pretty as yours

You 4:11 PM Please stop before you dig yourself into a deep chauvinistic hole that you have no hope of getting out of

Satoru 4:13 PM siiiiigh. fair point. so, where in the states did you live?

You 4:14 PM New York City. My dad works on Wall Street at an investment firm. Have you ever been?

Satoru 4:15 PM nah, i’ve only been to California and Hawaii. nyc seems cool though. did you like it?

You 4:15 PM I guess… I was a kid when I lived there. I moved to Japan when I was 15, so I think I missed out on all the really cool things that New York has to offer

Satoru 4:16 PM we should go together then!! you can show me around 🤗

The idea of playing tour guide to Satoru makes you smile but also makes you shudder. He strikes you as the kind of sucker who goes to all the tourist traps purely because that’s where everyone goes. Him in Times Square? Fuck that.

You 4:21 PM Hmm. I don’t come cheap, you know.

Satoru 4:22 PM name your price 😘

You 4:22 PM Do you always offer up blank checks to people you barely know?

Satoru 4:23 PM no, only the breathtakingly beautiful ones

You choke on rice, coughing roughly as you recoil from such a bold compliment.

You 4:26 PM Laying it on a bit thick, aren’t you? How do I know that you aren’t just treating me like another conquest?

Satoru 4:29 PM who says you’re a conquest?

You 4:30 PM Don’t act like you don’t literally charm the pants off women whenever you feel the need. There’s no way a man like you doesn’t have a string of fuck-buddies

Satoru 4:31 PM i’m not, i’m asking why you think i see you as a conquest

Satoru 4:31 PM because if you were, i’d have already hit it and quit it

You honestly can’t decide if you’re flattered or more affronted at his honesty. To let yourself cool off, you finish up your dinner and go pour yourself the last of your favorite red blend.

It’s hard to disagree with his logic, the more you let it roll around in your head. You’re just as guilty of doing the same thing, when the dry spells go a little too long for your liking. And you’ve definitely gotten your share of lectures from Kento about being “so reckless” with strangers.

You 4:40 PM That’s fair. I apologize for making assumptions.

Satoru 4:43 PM wow, didn’t expect you to own up to that so quickly 😳

You 4:44 PM Why?

Satoru 4:44 PM getting nanamin to admit he’s wrong is like pulling teeth!!

You smile, knowing how utterly true that statement is.

You 4:46 PM Well, I’m not my cousin… besides, it’s wrong to shame someone for casually hooking up with people when I do the same thing. I’m not interested in being a hypocrite 💁🏻‍♀️

Satoru 4:48 PM glad i’m not flirting with nanamin. that’d be awkward 😳😳

Satoru 4:48 PM ughhh. gotta run and kill some curses.

Satoru 4:49 PM before i forget, your wine is ready! so be set for dinner at 7pm tomorrow night. dress to impress 😉

Beg your pardon? How did getting a nice bottle of wine turn into a dinner date?

You 4:50 PM What the fuck? Can’t you just give me a bottle of wine, like a normal person?

He doesn’t respond, likely because he’s actually doing work, for once. You glare at your phone for another minute before you drain the last of your wine and start updating grades to keep yourself from texting a string of extremely rude curses to the subject of your ire.

It doesn’t escape your notice how he conveniently had to disappear and exorcise curses after dropping that bomb on you, either.

Huffing, you stomp upstairs and into your bedroom. Because, despite it all, you refuse to show up to dinner looking anything less than your best. As the thought settles, a little grin lifts the corners of your lips while you open your walk-in closet and survey the options.

“Time to fight fire with fire.”

[shadowofthelamp]

Year in Review: Writing

So, I can’t do the ‘year in review’ for art because... yeah, I didn’t really draw that much this year. So I decided to trawl through my writing tag for one favorite piece per month, and a pulled few paragraphs from each! Basically everything here is Zim except for the one tendershipping week thing, lmao, oops.

Some months had slim pickings but I still do like every one of these and it was a nice reflection.

January: Arrival

Her skin was tinted a sickly green, more like decomposing flesh than irken or human. Dib swallowed, but her breathing seemed to be even when he placed a hand to her kind of chubby chest, so that was probably just how their skin colors mixed, right? Besides, the lighting in the lab was always weird. Her mouth was gummy with no teeth yet, but her vocal cords were functioning perfectly. He was going to need hearing aids by his twenties, between her and Zim.

She had four fingers and three toes, which he kind of expected, as well as a nose but no ears. That made sense, if she had antennae, but it was still strange to run his fingers along the sides of her head and just feel smooth skin.

Her eyes… they were Zim’s through and through, deep ruby with the color filling the sclera. Did irkens even have sclera if they only had one color? Under the lab’s lights and mixed with the way everything on her slightly shimmered from the sticky goo she'd been coated in, she was like a section of space stolen into the little room and it took his breath away. The water blurring his vision didn’t help as he wiped it away with his sleeve, shifting her to one arm. She was so small...

__________

February: WLOD Dib meets Twix, alt version

It’s fascinating, to see what could have gone right. The 1001 here had gangly, underdeveloped limbs, and wispy hair that never quite got clean from the showers. This version wasn’t fat or anything, but definitely had more meat on its bones.

He examined the goggles- peering through them, they altered its vision because they made the lab beyond the ‘glass’ blurry. Curious, very curious. He was about to pop the lens out when it began to stir, tugging at the metal restraints with a clatter.

_________

March: Zibvoid

He talked to himself.

He talked to himself.

He talked to Zim, who hadn’t said a word since he’d died, but maybe he was just giving him the silent treatment.

Round and round, the generator buzzed like a bee and a hospital and a bug zapper that would draw in prey like flies to a web, except he was the spider now and the Zims were the moths.

Dib. Dib Dib Dib Dib Zim Dibdibdibdibzimdibdibzimdib. The names popped off his tongue as he rolled them both in his mouth, over and over until they didn’t seem like names at all anymore.

__________

April: Sturdy Branches (I know the date’s different on ao3 but it was first posted April)

Her dad is either singing or talking to himself as he vacuumed inside the house with a sway in his hips. At least you’re pretty sure it’s her dad? You haven’t seen a picture of him or anything, but he’s about the same age as your dad, so he’s too old to be a brother and too young to be a grandpa, and she hasn’t mentioned any uncles. A babysitter, maybe, but that doesn’t really make sense since Tulip isn’t home yet- ah!

She’s talking to someone as she turns the corner, bouncing her backpack. It’s lilac and circular, as well as covered in buttons. The Ranger helmet is in her backpack or still in her locker, but either way, she’s not wearing it anymore. She’s got the boots on, though. You adjust the binoculars a bit, but you aren’t good enough at lip-reading yet to tell what she’s saying. Whatever it is, it’s making the girl she’s talking to laugh. Maybe she’ll tell you tomorrow in class or at lunch if you pull her to sit at your table again. She has more friends at the middle table, but they don’t like sitting next to you after the beetle incident, and she doesn’t seem to mind. She always has a big smile when you start talking, and she’d say something if she didn’t like you, right? Pretty much everybody else does.

_________

May: Do Something For You (TD spoilers!)

Dib had never really thought ahead to having a family, but she was pretty much everything she’d want in one. She was an assistant and a partner, she was invested in the paranormal, she hated Zim- but on the other hand, she didn’t want him hurt? She seemed weirdly invested in making sure he didn’t get caught, actually. Eh, she’d hit him pretty hard, so it wasn’t like she was opposed to him getting his rightful dues for being an evil space monster.

It was relatively simple- she was just worried if he died then her timeline would be destabilized, which was a decent enough concern. Zim had to be important to his life for years to come, in one way or another. But whatever they were dealing with in the future, it had to be better with Zim out of the way earlier, right?

__________

June: Unnamed capture au drabble

“Why do you even give me these stupid scripts if you don’t like me doing them?” Dib folded his arms, kneading the ball in his palm. “Just get a robot or something.” He snorted. “I mean, it’d probably break, like half the stuff you touch.”

Zim’s hands curled into fists. “Take that back, you- you- worm!”

Dib quirked an eyebrow. “What, touched a nerve? When I was a kid, half the stuff you made broke, it’s just a fact. You only conquered Earth because this place is a trash heap and your garbage is slightly better than ours.” Over a year in Zim’s presence without too many galling injuries and a lifetime of not being able to keep his mouth shut made him bold. “Honestly, if I didn’t know better, I’d say you’re probably broken yoursel-” He was cut off with a Pak leg aimed directly at his throat, prodding in just deep enough to draw a drop of blood down the alien metal.

Zim’s eyes were narrowed, but something was watering on the edges, and Dib swallowed, adam’s apple bobbing just below the leg’s tip.

“Zim. Is. Not. Broken.”

___________

July: Laughter

Ryou couldn't stand the lights on one minute and then hated having them off the next. The shadows bled from the way the light reflected off the couch, how it seemed to devour the wall behind it, and he swore he could still hear the voice in his mind. (Was that himself? Had he started thinking of himself as a separate voice? It had been ages since he'd really been alone, even though anyone outside him would have wondered about the boy who talked to his reflection like it was an old friend.)

He wished he could talk to Ryou. Ryou who had seemed so pliable as a child but had proved entertaining, a match for the fire, (heh, fire, even though it wasn't that funny, in fact, it wasn't funny at all, but what did he have but jokes? it wasn't like he could cry anymore) who carved out rules for use of the body with gritted teeth and tugged at the rope of the Ring so hard it had chafed his neck. He'd respected him. From a soft child, he'd hardened and grown firm, grown powerful, grown to be worthy. What were the odds fate had given him a chance at the same time someone had handed a young Yugi the box with the Puzzle? A roll of the dice. (The Gods having a last laugh, perhaps..)

Ryou dug his nails into the wood of the desk so hard that it made crescents, tiny moons in the umber that dug splinters into his pale fingers. The little model of the Thief King sat, as he always did, half-hidden on his shelf behind the pieces of Zorc. He'd never bothered to glue the monster back together but felt oddly reluctant to just incinerate the figures and be done with them. Both of them. Either of them. Maybe he just didn't want to pretend it had never happened. (Maybe he was worried he'd forget, thoughts and memories swept away by the sands of time, trickling down the hourglass, minute by minute, day by day, as he aged the way the Spirit had never been allowed to.)

___________

August: New Mission

It had been a month.

Nebula Twix had survived. She’d had to be popped into the healing pod when she had an allergic reaction to the oatmeal Dib had tried to feed her when it had inflamed her spooch, and Gir had tried to eat her head the one second Zim’s back had been turned, and she made goo from both ends a lot, but otherwise, she was perfectly fine!

And with that, Zim had come to a crossroads. It seemed that he was, indeed, in this for the long heel. (He was pretty sure that was the phrase. Humans liked large feet and large boots, so it made sense.) He could either continue to keep her a secret, or he could pass on his success to the Tallests.

Creating slaves out of the species marked for invasion was pretty common- something like 85% of invaders did it. But creating hybrids? That number was much lower. (Besides, they were usually disposed of as soon as the invasion was complete.) And irkens having those hybrids from their own bodies, and not just mixing them out of genetic slurry and quickly aging them up in time-fields? Almost completely unheard of. Zim was the pioneer in that area.

Also, having smeets from one’s body may have been a tad illegal, considering how hard it had been to find good information and judging from the fact that all irkens found to do it were brought in for experimentation. But no matter! Zim was nothing if not very, very good at things few other irkens dared to do, ready to drive the Empire forward by any means possible. They would have to appreciate that!

__________

September: Twix finds out she’s pregnant

Secondary life-form detected, the chamber chimed.

“Oh, gross, I’ve got a tapeworm? Well, flush it out.” Twix rolled her eyes, going back to the computer.

Lifeform has elements of Pak user.

Her finger froze on the ‘b’ key. “It… what? Analyze species origin.”

The chamber hummed around Twix as sweat dripped down the skin of her neck. There was a tiny 'ding!’ like a kitchen timer.

Lifeform is too underdeveloped to make more than approximations, but is roughly 25% irken and 75% Dominant Earth Species.

Her scream rattled the walls.

__________

October: Best-Laid Plans

“Of course, Number One.” Two turned his head slightly, and Dib jolted- he hadn’t directly commanded him to do that. “Your plan is perfect.” He blinked slowly- much slower than most Zims. Most Zims were utterly manic, back and forth and back and forth, loud and brutal and dangerous, but Two- Two had always worshiped him. Maybe even more than the rest. It had been nice, to be admired so heavily. Two had adored the personal attention when he was turned into an errand boy.

Dib might miss him.

He shook that thought out of his head, gripping both sides of Two’s face with his index finger and thumb, nails (not claws, they weren’t claws) digging into the cheeks.

“You belong to me.” Two didn’t respond, and Dib dug in a little further.  Irken skin was thicker than a human’s, with a single drop of pink blood oozing over Dib’s fingernail and leaving a barely-perceptible damp trail. “Respond. Who do you belong to?”

“I belong to you, Number One.”

___________

November: Desperation (warning if you click through for impalement)

Dib’s lips were on Zim’s before he even knew what he was doing. “You’re not dying on me, you little bastard,” he hissed, fumbling to hold up the body as Zim nearly coughed blood directly into Dib’s mouth. It was salty and sweet all in one, but Dib couldn’t linger on the taste. Zim’s fingers grasped at his shirt, and Dib took that as a sign that it was working, pressing their lips together hard enough to bruise the capillaries.  

There was a click. Dib breathed in blood and out carbon dioxide, sputtering and swallowing it down so Zim wouldn’t die like this-

Something red-hot and metallic climbed over his arm before digging into his spine, and he realized that the body had gone entirely limp before there was electricity and then there was nothing.

____________

December: Freak

Twix grit her teeth. “How am I supposed to trust you if you’ll just- just do that?”

“How am I supposed to drop my whole social life because you can’t help being the weirdest person in school?” Tulip shot back. “I do care about you, but it’s so, so hard sometimes, because you just don’t know how to act, and sometimes I’m sick of waiting for you to play catchup just because your parents are the town freaks!” She slapped her hands over her mouth and took a step back.

Twix’s eye twitched under her goggles. “At least they’re freaks that love me. I’ll see you tomorrow, third period.”

“Twix-”

“I said,” Twix said through gritted teeth, “I’ll see you tomorrow. Get out before I reactivate the security.”

Tulip got out, and Twix buried her face in a couch pillow and screamed.

[ericmhe]

A Story Rough Draft

“Peripheral” - working title

“Yes, I work at home, but I'm still working, you know,” Greg explained to his sister, trying to avoid having her kids dropped off on him again.

No one seemed to respect the basic premise, least of all his own family and it was kind of driving him crazy.

“Hang on, sounds like the mail's here.”

“See, you can just go get the mail as soon as it shows up. Why can't you look after your nephew and niece?”

“Because walking out to the mailbox is only a couple of minutes, and kids take hours of attention?”

“Come on, it would save me so much in babysitters.”

“And it could cost me my job,” he muttered as he opened the mailbox. Unfortunately, having to hold the phone up by clamping it between his face and shoulder meant it was right up against his mouth, and she actually heard what was meant to be an exasperated comment to himself.

He was enduring the aggrieved reaction as he walked back and flipped through the mail when it happened.

It was just in the corner of his eye, blurry and indistinct. Some kind of insect, or whatever centipedes would count as, at least a foot long. It sported far too many legs writhing about randomly, bizarrely asymmetrical with some limbs just far too long. He shouted as he jumped up, dropping his phone onto the concrete porch.

But the horrible writhing creature had vanished. It was just a harmless branch of a ground shrub, dried and browned. He felt his face get hot as he looked around, but fortunately none of the neighbors were out and he probably wasn't seen. He picked up the stick and threw it in the yard. Then he picked up the phone and tried to apologize.

Things were normal for a while, going from day to day taking care of his cat and dog, Sam and Fred. The names were an aborted joke he feared might be a little too nerdy. Working from the computer and fielding the odd phone call filled most of the day's work hours. Then one night, while he was brushing his teeth, a vague blurry reflection slid in the corner of his vision. A long body that looked covered in spikes. Wiggling antennae, and way too many legs for reason. He fought the reaction to jump away, but kept his body still, and only moved his eyes, trying to bring it into focus.

A ball of fuzz this time, some carpet threads and pet hair that had escaped the vacuum in a big unsightly clump. He threw it away and wondered what kind of mental disorder could be responsible for a recurring hallucination. He spent some time trying to search for hallucination symptoms on the internet with little luck. He fought the impulse for a bit but eventually took to forums and question websites trying to figure out if anyone else had similar experiences.

“What, some kind of bug? Like a spider?” some anonymous poster with a string of numbers asked on his thread.

“Try something more like 'Hell's most hardcore centipede' if you want a mental image.” he replied with a huff he knew full well no one would see online..

His work suffered the next couple of days from all the time inquiring online to no avail. Maybe he'd have to figure out a way to talk to someone in the mental health field. Get some drugs at least, provided it was affordable.

The third time, he was working. He tensed and drew his feet up into his chair. He would not acknowledge it. He would not. Would not. Bugs had too many limbs to start with, but the thing he could but couldn't quite see in the reflection of his monitor shamed even the most nightmarish millipede. Unlike a millipede's strange gait this thing had no sense of rhythmic motion, just flailing asymmetrical chaos.

Sweating, he forced himself to stare ahead and keep typing, ignoring the thing that seemed to be beside him. The reflection grew more frantic. His head began to ache, making reading his own writing impossible. He shut his eyes and kept typing. The headache grew worse, pulsing, with a steady drumbeat. His skin crawled, as if those writhing legs were just about to touch him. He couldn't stand any more; something was about to break... Fred barked his annoying high pitched yap.

His eyes flew open, but the flailing monstrosity reflected beside him was still there. He spun around in his chair. This time there wasn't even anything there to fool his eyes. The dog was indeed barking at nothing, just the wall behind him. Fred was lovable but dumb, he wasn't even pointed at where the bug thing had been.

“How are you going to protect anyone if you can't even tell where to bark?”

A few more incidents let him figure out some patterns. Ignoring it brought pain, and no medication he tried dulled it any, it only went away with time. Nothing seemed to change his condition, not changing his hours or diet or sleeping schedule. However it felt crazy to keep spinning around to try and catch glimpse of a nightmare bug that vanished in an instant. More likely it was never there at all, so why should he keep stopping his work for it? Maybe it was only for a few seconds, but damn it he didn't want to give in on principal.

Then again maybe he was just going crazy.

Then one day a political volunteer rung his doorbell to convince Greg to vote for a favored candidate in the upcoming primary. Greg wasn't really listening. surprised to find himself jealous of the man's eyebrows though they were partially hidden by his glasses and the glint catching on the reflection. His own eyebrows were balding, and this guy’s looked straight model worthy. He let the man talk at him for a while, guessing that most people would be prone to closing the door on his face and he hadn't seen anyone face to face himself for a while. In a way it was nice to be talked to, even about a topic he found boring. Now if there was a way to trade eyebrows, he'd vote for whoever this guy wanted.

He was trying to distract himself with these thoughts from the antics in his peripheral vision. He didn’t want to appear crazy. However when the operative looked up from his pamphlet, he shouted in surprise and threw his clipboard at the wall next to Greg's door.

“What the hell?!”

Greg, shocked, turned to look. Of course nothing was there. “What did you see?” he asked, heart pounding.

The man’s excellent eyebrows had disappeared into his hair. “Sorry. I thought,” but he trailed off.

“Was it something like a centipede?” Greg pressed.

But the man was still staring at the wall, looking confused and flushed. “Um. I should get going, quotas and stuff. Don’t forget to vote,” he called over his shoulder as he hurried down the stairs.

Greg at first felt exultant, and then terrified. It wasn't just in his head! So what the hell was it? He started to go back in and noticed the clipboard, picked it up and turned around to yell at the guy only to find he was already exiting the driveway in his car. Oh well, he'd hang on to it for a while in case he came back for it. He had other things to worry about. He suddenly remembered the thing disappearing when Sam hopped on the desk – at first he hadn't thought much of it, but maybe that meant being observed by anything would dispel its presence.

He resolved to find out and went to the store, bought some cameras, and got the largest storage he could afford and set them up around the house. They caught the thing on tape, sort of. Only in the spots out of the camera's focus did the thing appear, looking just as hazy and indistinct as did in his own vision. He even showed the footage around and everyone confirmed they saw something, but usually gave him a bit of grief for trying to hide a bad special effect and prank people.

It was real, a hundred percent confirmed, but it either would not or could not be captured as a clear image. It could only show up as an unclear one, in the field of view that was out of focus. If he just got a ton more cameras and covered his house with them so no spot in it was out of focus then it couldn't get to him. The venture would very expensive and time consuming. Power would be an issue, for now he would try setting up only in whatever room he was using that moment. He'd focus on his work room since he spent the most time there and had the most episodes, only the bathroom came close.

A couple of days went by and it seemed to have worked. No more creepy crawly nightmares scampering about on the edges of vision. There weren't any headaches yet, but they had been somewhat infrequent most of the time. It'd be a while longer before he was sure he'd thwarted them. The bug showed up alone sometimes, but the headache never happened without the bug so there must be some kind of connection. There were still unknowns, but he felt confident he had won. He set back to work hoping to make up for lost time. He pushed it so long he found himself falling asleep at his desk. He'd have to get up before he really dozed off. Just one more...

He knew he had to be somewhere to do something. The sensation was vague but compelling, driving him to a brisk walk. He rounded the corner around a building and was caught in the flash of a camera. The flash of light wasn't just disorientating because of the momentary vision impact but it actually burned. He jumped back around the corner, stunned by the burned flesh peeling away. He ran back in a hurry and took an alley, away from the crowds.

He came out alright and scanned the people in the street for any cameras. He ran along, wincing away from any flash of light he saw. He tried going down a back alley and nearly walked into a giant burning eyeball. Feeling vaguely disappointed in himself on some creative level he backed away, barely aware of his skin peeling away in a terrible burn.

Finally he was at his destination, but there was a line of people holding cameras making him pause. How could he get around that? Some of them were taking pictures of something, whatever it was it wasn't important, but it was forcing him to keep a distance. Even so the flashes of light were causing blisters here and there, deepening wounds and exposing bone as he tried to find a way around.

No good the whole area was blocked entirely. He decided to try risking it, but as he approached the whole crowd seemed to pivot towards him and start snapping pictures. He backed away trailing smoke and flakes of blackened skin. He finally realized he didn't feel the pain that he should. So, a dream then... what was so important though? It wasn't like any dream he'd ever had.

Greg's vision was blurry as his eyes opened and light from the monitor made him want to close them again. He'd fallen asleep in his computer desk in spite of himself. Well, his back was going to be out of it for the rest of the day. It might almost be a welcome distraction from the headache he had.

Headache?

When he first tried to open his eyes he found the action strangely difficult but with some effort he forced them to open and immediately saw his computer's monitor in sleep mode. In the 'black mirror' of the powered down computer screen he could see himself and … something else. Strangely none of his normal surroundings were reflected in the monitor, just a strange cluster of shapes that seemed to make no sense. It was like an escher painting come to life but worse somehow, the effort to focus on any one group of shapes only resulting in his gaze sliding away from it. He tried to turn away from it but found his neck wouldn't respond. Probably stiff from his nap. He could hear Fred whining and scratching at the door. He'd hardly noticed the noise before, it seemed to be drowned out by something whirling through his own thoughts. Wasn't that supposed to go the other way around?

He tried to use his feet to spin the chair but they wouldn't listen. Now he was getting worried. Still, the bizarre thing or things in the monitor couldn't be helping his headache. He tried pushing backwards, pleased to find that it worked but wondering why he couldn't move to the sides.

A wave of pain and nausea hit him with such force he wanted to reel, double over, physically react in some way, but for some reason he seemed to be stuck staring at the reflection in the monitor.

This felt far worse than it had ever been before.

Another wave, at least as strong as the first.

It felt like his head might split open as he struggled against the urge to vomit.

He looked around as much as his nearly immobile head would allow but saw no sign of the bug apparition.

Another wave hit. They seemed to keep getting stronger. Or his resistance was weakening. Maybe both.

He fell back as he started to stand up. What was happening? No bug to be seen, but this headache was something horrible. Why couldn't he turn? They areas around his eyes and ears started to feel wet. He intended to look around for something to dab at the area, or to find the bug, but his head stayed looking forward. 'How many marketers would pay blood sacrifices to claim such a captive audience? He wondered trying to take his mind off the pain and nausea with a quip to himself.

Another wave.

This time he actually seemed to slide from the chair some, but his head craned to keep the reflection of the monitor in sight. He struggled to push himself back up. He thought about the dreams, and crazy as it was... he went back to the desk and flipped one camera down, letting it record nothing but desk and dark.

Yet another wave and he started to slide from the chair again, nearly slamming his chin into his keyboard's resting spot.

He pushed himself back up shaking the whole while. He tried to reach for the monitor but his hands wouldn't reach that way. He could grab just about anything else though, so since he couldn't turn to look for the other camera, he settled for taking things from his desk and throwing them in the general direction he knew it was. Books, his coin tray, some old CDs. He was about to sadly start with his mouse and keyboard when he finally heard a clatter that sounded right.

The next wave of pain came instantly afterwards.

He hit his head on the desk, but the pain of that was lost in what was already happening. He shuffled backwards, leaning into his rolling chair, throwing the last few things on his desk behind him. Nothing happened. He made his way back as quickly as he could force himself until he hit the wall.

Another wave and his vision was going blurry. He couldn't even see himself in the monitor any more. The strange shapes were the only thing to be seen as they shifted around in mind-bending bizarre patterns.

The wet feeling increased and his back spasmed. He flailed against the wall wildly for a moment until he managed to get a hold of himself enough to push himself up. The last camera went down after a long moment of scrambling wildly trying to grab at his shelf and nearly immediately he saw the tangle of buggy limbs that had been haunting him.

It was the easiest thing in the world to turn and find nothing. He looked back at the monitor through the corner of his eye and only saw a normal monitor reflecting a faint gleam of light. He laughed.

How was it possible? The grotesque bug monster too horrific to look upon directly was the good guy of the scenario? Something worse constantly behind him...

He needed to get rid of the cameras after all. He really hoped he could find all the receipts...

One weekend when his sister brought her kids over they came running to their mother screaming and sobbing. They were unintelligible and confused their mother.

He knelt down to talk to them and asked, “was it a bug?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Don't worry about it. It only looks scary.”

“Um...” the kids radiated uncertainty.

“Worry about what it's warning you about,” he smiled devilishly as his sister glared daggers at him.

“What is it?”

“You know how some people befriend crows? They give them food and the crows share shiny things? It's like they're friends, even if the crows are never pets. The bug creature is like that, I don't know what it gets from me, but it's always watching out for me. Us now I guess. So don't worry about it. I try to wave back sometimes, I like to think it likes it. I mean, it's waving at me all the time.”

His sister sighed, “I guess it's a good thing I didn't get you to start watching them after all.”

[ssironstrange]

Hawks of Nephthys pt. 3

I thought this was going to be the final part but i was wrong lmao sorry there will be one more after this.

(read part 2)

tagging: @im-trying-to-be-oky

     “There’s going to be a small ceremony held for the technique Christine and I came up with,” Stephen licked his lips, actually nervous for the first time in years. “I’d like you to come… as my date.”

     Tony waved a hand and the holographic screens were pushed away. It was obvious he was trying not to smile.

     “Are you sure? What happened to being afraid of it tarnishing your reputation?”

     “I don’t need reputation. My work speaks for itself. Besides, it’s no skin off my back if someone would rather have less capable hands operate on them just because I’m dating a man.”

     Tony rolled his chair away from the desk, stood and walked around it to meet Stephen where he stood fidgeting with the cuffs of his sleeves.

     “Well it’s about damn time. I hate keeping secrets, you know.”

     “I know,” Stephen smiled with soft fondness. “And please—leave the armor here.”

     “Party pooper.”

     “Another time.”

     “Fine. I’m holding you to that. You’re gonna have a date with Iron Man one of these days. At that nice Italian place we like. Full armor. Might not even take the mask off.”

     Stephen couldn’t roll his eyes hard enough, yet he laughed anyway.

     Stephen opened a portal right beside where Steve stood in one of the compound’s many conference rooms.

     No one seemed particularly surprised.

     Except for Peter Quill who was still live on their view screen and apparently scrambled to get Gamora’s attention about it.

     “You found his ship? Him?”

     “We believe so. Picked up an old signal on the frequencies common to Earth.” Gamora responded, her tone carefully guarded. “Doctor, if it is him, the chances that he is still alive—”

     “Are infinitesimal, I know.”

     Silence and tension fell upon them like an itchy woolen blanket.

     Nebula broke through the quiet after a few long minutes.

     “We’re here.”

     None of them, not even Drax who rarely sported emotion, could keep their expressions impassive. One by one their faces fell.

     They didn’t have to say it.

     It was his ship.

     Stephen was gone from the compound and aboard the Benatar within seconds.

     Tony Stark limped out of a C-17 with his arm in a sling and Rhodes delicately supporting his every move. Somehow, Tony still managed to stand tall and confident. He was too thin, his hair was too long, he needed to shave, and needed to sleep for about two weeks straight.

     But he was alive.

     At his side, Pepper squeezed his hand while holding back tears as Tony approached the two of them on the runway. He took a look around at the Air Force personnel, sniffed, then let his attention fall to Pepper.

     “Your eyes are red. Few tears for your long lost boss?”

     “Tears of joy,” She said through a bright smile. “I hate job hunting.”

     “Yeah, well,” Tired eyes landed on Stephen and his throat bobbed with a hard swallow. “Vacation’s over.”

     With his good hand, Tony grabbed Stephen’s as he walked past and towards the car and held it like he’d never let it go again.

     The docking clamps attached with a dull thud.

     “Stephen, the ship is dead. Not even the backup life support systems are active. Are you sure about this?” Gamora laid a hand on his arm. Her concern was touching.

     “I am,” He patted her hand, his own trembling more than usual. “I need to know.”

     Rocket chimed in. “Knowin’ is one thing, doc. You don’t gotta go and hurt yourself like that.”

     “I am Groot.”

     “See?”

     Despite the circumstances, Stephen let a fragile smile through. “I appreciate the concern, and I don’t expect any of you to understand. But this is something I have to do.”

     Magic cloaked his body in safety against the harsh elements of the dead ship.

     Stephen walked through the short terminal, opened the hatch door with a single gesture, and stepped inside.

     Too focused on the patient file that promised to bolster an already impressive record, Stephen didn’t see the tail light until it was too late.

     The car spun off the edge of the cliff, rolled and flipped multiple times on the way down, and landed nose down in chilly waters.

     Stephen opened one eye that wasn’t swollen shut fourteen hours later to Christine and Tony talking quietly and his hands in fixators.

     The deep and painful inhale and the spike in his heart rate alerted them to his consciousness. Tony’s eyes were red with heavy bags beneath them, and Christine could barely look at him.

     “What… did they do?” He croaked out, throat dry and lips swollen.

     “Take it easy, baby,” Tony placed a gentle hand on his thigh and fresh tears threatened to fall.

     “It—it took Tony a while to find you…” Christine’s voice shook.

    “What did they do?” His snarl was weak, but still enough to make both of them wince.

     Neither of them could look at him while Christine donned her best professional tone.

     “Eleven stainless steel pins in the bones, multiple torn ligaments, severe nerve damage in both hands.”

     “Oh, God…”

     “Stephen, honey, you were on the table for eleven hours. No one could have done better.”

     He swallowed the sandpaper in his throat and turned his head as much as he could to look directly at Tony.

     “I could have done better.”

     It was the truth and they all knew it.

     Christine excused herself and Tony squeezed his thigh tenderly.

     “Baby, I promise I’ll find a way to fix this.”

     Stephen drained every penny to his name on experimental treatments, more surgeries, and multiple therapies. Tony devoted his entire R&D department to it.

     Neither of them were successful.

     Neither of them stopped trying.

     No atmosphere control.

     No artificial gravity.

     No temperature regulation.

     There was very little difference between the inside of the ship and the vacuum of space outside. It was eerie and quiet enough that his own heartbeat seemed deafening. A simple spell was cast for a ball of light and it hovered over him as he walked, illuminated the darkness in a soft bluish glow. Anything that hadn’t been strapped down floated motionless until he pushed it from his path. Stephen knew there was no use actually searching the ship. There was only one logical place to look.

     Stephen headed for the cockpit.

     Stephen lost count of how many times they had done this now. It seemed inevitable they would attend the same galas, charity events, science and technology conventions, or award ceremonies. He watched Tony grow into his new CEO role under the guidance of Stane, a man who rubbed him in all the wrong ways. Stephen watched him evolve a mask for the media and public and delighted when it was taken off just for him.

    They would disappear to storage closets, bathrooms, and empty offices at first. Eventually, Stephen started going home with him, started staying the night.

     He looked over to Tony’s sleeping face beside him and felt a smile tug at his lips. Manhattan’s night time glow fell upon him through the huge windows of his penthouse suite—one he had been frequenting more often than his actual home in Malibu. He was soft like this, all his burdens and stress and sorrows suspended for a few blessed hours. The tension had long ago drained from his every atom, Stephen more than happy to take and take and take until Tony was spent. His hair was a mess, lips parted slightly for deep and slow breaths, face half smashed into the pillow he hugged, and his neck and shoulders covered in Stephen’s claim. No matter how many times he saw Tony Stark raw and vulnerable like this, it made his stomach flutter and heart forget a beat or two.

     “I think I love you,” Stephen whispered and finally closed his eyes to drift to sleep with a warmth inside his heart.

     Never had silence been so deafening as it was for him then. It was not like other silences which were, rather, lack of one dominant sound yet still enough small noises to fill the void. No, this was a true, total and complete silence. His blood rushed in his ears, his heart beat so loud he was sure the Guardians could hear it on their ship, and his every breath came in like the angry wind before a storm. It was disorientating to hear the basic workings of your own body, and just one of the many reasons Stephen liked to avoid actual space.

     He rounded the doorway, telling himself he was ready while knowing he wasn’t.

     The light from the orb increased, slowly pushing darkness back into the emptiness of space.

     Stephen’s chest tightened, the weight of his sorrow crushing so hard he was almost positive it would collapse into the black hole it felt like. Strapped in one of the pilot’s seats, Tony Stark sat motionless, suspended in time.

     Space was, at least, merciful in death.

     Cold numbness ate Stephen away at his very core. He didn’t even feel himself take reluctant steps closer.

     Tony was pale, his lips and fingertips tinged with blue and eyes shut. His head leaned to the side, pillowed by the chair’s headrest. Too skinny, even with the subtle swell of what little water had been left in his body trying to escape before it froze. He looked so peaceful, Stephen could almost pretend he was simply asleep.

     Almost.

     Cradled beneath his arm was the damaged remains of his helmet; the source of the distress call if he had to guess. Inside, a faint red light glowed on and off. Odd that Tony wouldn’t have shut it down once he knew the inevitable. Carefully, Stephen worked it out of the frozen grip of his would-be husband, his entire self functioning on autopilot to the point he barely knew if he was still in his physical body. A bit of magic was given to the nanite helmet, warming it just enough for its circuitry to function without the risk of failing under such extreme cold. The eyes flickered a few times, stayed on, then projected into the empty space of the cockpit.

[happyhealthycats]

is there anyway i could get a cat while being severely allergic to them? ;^; ik ur probably not the right person to ask but i gotta know

SO I actually get this question a lot! Hope you don’t mind a bit of back story with your answer

My husband was always REALLY allergic to cats. He would wheeze and typically have difficulty breathing while around one. We weren’t even going to adopt a cat when we got Heimdall, but the big dude really just won us over. So I researched. A lot. And basically this is what I found.

It depends ENTIRELY on the severity of your allergy. My husband’s, while uncomfortable, wasn’t the throat-closing, hive-raising reaction that I’d seen from others. He personally has success with his daily allergy medication, so he uses that to counteract anything our other endeavors don’t take care of. Your own personal reaction will be the best way to tell how to handle it.

We have 8 cats in our house currently. Yet my husband isn’t constantly in a state of  anaphylaxis. 

We have air purifiers in every room. They’re outfitted with special filters that specifically handle pet dander. We clean them frequently and replace the filters as per the suggestion on the box. We also vacuum. A lot. We dust our shelves. A lot. We allow the cats to sleep in the bed with us, but another helpful step would be to train the cats to not sleep on your bed. 

A typical cat allergy is related to the proteins cats produce on their skin and in their saliva, not the actual fur. There are things you can do to help keep these protein levels down. Brush them frequently, use dander wipes on them. Some people recommend bathing them, BUT, bathing them can cause them to groom more if they’re unhappy with how they smell afterwards (yes it might be nice that they smell like Lilac Meadow Dream, but Whiskers really just wants to smell like Whiskers). When a cat grooms themself, it produces more of that protein you’re allergic to. Hence more of the thing that causes allergies.

Some people have a bad reaction to the litter box. This is typically more related to breathing issues related to asthma, but not totally unheard of. Getting a silica litter is EXTREMELY helpful in aiding this.

We’ve found, over the years, that simply doing these things, and getting one cat at a time, my husband’s allergies are MUCH better than they were years ago. He still reacts if we’re in a home that doesn’t clean as often as we do, but it’s more tolerable than it has been in the past. This is obviously not going to be the case for everyone, but it is, as I understand it, the nature of some allergies (oddly enough I worked as an administrative assistant in an Allergist’s office for a short time so I learned a lot about this there).

Typically short hair cats with less thick coats will produce less of the protein that causes allergies. You can find a list of “hypoallergenic” cats anywhere on the internet, but they’re typically either hairless, or have very short, thin coats, although there are a few who have longer, thicker coats but produce less of one protein found in the skin. 

And despite what some people believe, no, shaving a cat will not help. Honestly shaving should only be done if absolutely medically necessary. 

While I ALWAYS encourage people to adopt from a shelter, these hypoallergenic breeds are INCREDIBLY sought after. And unless it’s a very special circumstance, they typically aren’t surrendered. In the rare cases that they ARE, they’re snatched up almost immediately. So if you’re DEAD SET on adopting, you might be waiting for a while. If you decide to go for a breeder, I just recommend doing your research. The cats can be very expensive, but it’s important to recognize a good breeder from a backyard breeder. I know this may get some negative attention. All of my cats come from a shelter. But no shelter worker I’ve EVER known has EVER seen a pure bred Devon Rex walk through the doors (again, not saying its impossible, but an owner is less likely to surrender a cat they paid $2k+ for than a shelter cat they got on sale during kitten season for $20).

Essentially, see what you can handle. If your allergies are SEVERE, you may have to see if you can handle the hypoallergenic cats. If your allergies aren’t terrible, just uncomfortable, you can work with a short-haired cat that you adopt, just be sure you clean, and groom the cat with brushing and wipe regularly!

If you are SUPER ULTRA MEGA set on adopting every single long-haired cat on the planet, then your best route might actually be to meet with an allergist and see if the series of shots they provide can help you. It’s ENTIRELY up to you with how much you can afford to do, how badly you want a cat, and how you personally react to the allergy. 

[claroquequiza]

Hi, why is it that you see a brown/black top male/"little" white bottom male ship as a problem? I mean.. It's still just a ship and ppl can see that ship however they want. Just because there's more nsfw art and fics of this brown/black top/"little" white bottom doesn't mean it's problematic. There will always be some kind of majority and minority opinions in ships. So, why is it a problem? Thank you for answer, have a nice day!

Ok, so, Anon, here is what the post you’re referring to said:

Why do you white gays love to make couples where you make the brown person some big aggressive dominant alpha or shit protecting their tiny small white gay stop doing that it isnt cute its ugly

You left a lot out–but rather tellingly you put “PoC equals top and white equals bottom” in, so…let’s address all that.

The post–and myself by extension–are not saying that PoC/white ships are inherently bad. What we’re saying is that a lot of people steep them in racist, colorist, and heteronormative tropes. This doesn’t apply to just PoC/white ships, either, it also applies to darker-skinned/lighter-skinned couples, hence why I include colorism.

I’ll also point out that majority doesn’t equal morality. If we went by what the majority wanted, so very many of us would be in a very bad way, Anon, so just because most people do it–or you believe most people do it–doesn’t make it right or beyond reproach. Part of being an adult and being part of civilization is figuring out when the majority is right and when it is very, very wrong.

It’s also a matter of “representation matters”. Representation goes both ways–it can be a positive thing and it can be a very negative thing. Nothing exists in a vacuum, not even ships, and the way people treat ships is often how they treat real people.

Let’s break it down:

Racism

The PoC in the pairing is often assigned the older, domineering, brutish, and uncivilized traits, both physically and behaviorally, while the white person is–not. Meaning that they’re younger, submissive, meek, physically weaker, and innocent. This plays into the racist belief that PoC of all genders are inherently animalistic and base–they also tend to initiate the sexual advances because they’re hypersexual in contrast with the white partner, who is more often portrayed as “chaste” or “pure”. The white person usually doesn’t initiate sex and often protests when it begins, and the PoC overpowers them, which is a common racist narrative related to PoC hunting and raping white women.

Colorist

In ships with two PoC, the above plays out with the darker-skinned person assigned the brutish role and the lighter-skinned person assigned the “pure” role. In Overwatch particularly, you see this play out all the time with McH//anzo and McGe//nji (with McCree acting as the brute), McRey//es (where McCree assumes the submissive role because Gabriel is both darker and older), R7//6 (again with Gabriel), and Pharme//rcy (with Pharah as the brute).

Now, again, while those are specific examples of ships where this problem is prevalent, I’m not saying that the ships themselves are inherently bad. The way many people treat the characters in those ships is the problem.

Heteronormativity

It’s not coincidence that the people in the ship are each assigned traditionally masculine and traditionally feminine traits. You yourself, Anon, played into that by assuming that the PoC is the “top” and the white person is the “bottom”. Why can’t the big, aggressive, dominant alpha be the bottom and the tiny small white gay be the top? Because this treatment of ships is basically designating one as the “man” and the other as the “woman”, because how can a relationship function without a man and a woman??? It can’t!!! 

This is also damaging to straight ships because it assumes that men should be hypermasculine and women should be hyperfeminine, both of which are toxic constructs designed to maintain white patriarchal power structures. Individual people can be hypermasculine or hyperfeminine if they so choose–or both. Or neither. Or a little bit of this and a little bit of that. But the fact that a great many people assume that one person must be hypermasculine and the other hyperfeminine by default, in all relationships, is damaging. To everyone.

Finally, let me just say that people can ship what they want, Anon, but they can’t eschew the implications and real world ramifications that their opinions produce. If people make content, over and over and over, where the PoC is animalistic and the white person is pure, then chances are they think that applies in real life, too.

[purpleskunkape-blog]

How To Shave The Pubic Hair Trimmer For Men

Some guys trim their pubic hair, others prefer to shave or wax, and most guys simply go away it alone. This substitute Physique Cap for the Remington® iLIGHT® Extremely Faces & Body Hair Elimination System (IPL6500) makes use of pulses of sunshine power to disrupt hair development on the root for permanent hair reduction. If you happen to do wish to attempt it, nevertheless, test the hair removal cream on the within of your elbow before making use of to your non-public elements. This bikini trimmer comes with a cleaning brush to enable you to keep the system as clean as doable and to maximize the use you can expect from it. Most women know there's a vital must-have” lacking from all of those specialists' lists, although a great bikini razor or trimmer. The trimmer does an awesome job of chopping your pubic hair right down to almost skin degree, while the foil shaver head will leave your skin utterly clean. if you want to learn more about hair trimmers than check out my website Hairtrimmerli.

Trim the hair evenly and shave something growing alongside the creases of your legs (so that none sticks out of your boy briefs, Speedo, and so forth.). There are certain bacteria and yeast that dwell in your groin area, and you do not wish to spread these to other components of your body,” says Anthony Rossi, M.D., an assistant professor of dermatology at Weill Cornell Medical Faculty. The trimmer means that you can trim longer hairs in preparation for shaving or for a tidier type. All pubic shavers feature clean reducing blades mild on the pores and skin. Whether you are just looking for an easy shaver or a multi-instrument trimmer with extras like precision epilation attachments, there's something for you. Though I'm not in the enterprise to trim your physique hair, I can give you some advice on how to trim your body hair and what the best physique shavers and males' physique trimmers are.

In case you are trying to get an entire clean shave, this isn't the razor for you, but in the event, you're in search of a neat trim with simply adjustable lengths, you will need to do that Panasonic. This is ours have a look at the highest 5 finest bikini razors & trimmers on the market for Sep. It's an awesome leg/armpit shaver and a good bikini trimmer. They'll do a great job cleaning up small areas, though we wouldn't recommend utilizing this mannequin to exchange a razor for full-fledged shaving jobs; the place the Remington excels is at trimming. The next ideas are for shaving towards the course of progress ("in opposition to the grain" - which produces the smoothest shave) but notice that should you first shave within the route the hair is rising, you will shorten most of it. Then shaving in the wrong way will be simpler, but some folks discover it sufficient to only shave within the course of development and stop there. - Depending on the kind of electrical facial foil shaver you may have, please think about the load you are putting on it (overheating and many others.) and then possibly contemplate cleaning it as your groom (relying on the dimensions of the world being groomed). The dimensions and form of the trimmer or shaver are vital too. It is not going to minimize facial hair as well as a high-quality face shaver like the Braun Series 9, however, it will provide you with one of the best of each world. Rinse, Dry and Moisturize Moisturizing after shaving your public space is crucial - it helps soothe the pores and skin. And there's the matter of price - a fancy electrical razor can run upwards of $one hundred, which is so much to spend, especially in case you don't always shave or are on finance. For your chest and back (as long as you have got a good friend to do your back) then we'd counsel you to think about the Philips Norelco Bodygroom Collection 7100 - it has a trimmer at one finish and a foil shaver on the different finish. The trimmer head is kind of a bit smaller than a devoted trimmer so you may be happier utilizing it for smaller contact up areas than trimming your total pubic space. With the Norelco Series 7100, you're not only getting a pubic hair shaver. The pearl-tipped trimmer on this Norelco unit has 5 different hair length settings, all the best way from 1/8 of an inch up to about ½ an inch, so you may groom everything from lengthy, curly chest hair to the shorter hairs which want cautious attention around your groin area, while deciding on exactly how long to go away them. Handy as it's, it also features smooth tips about its head to get rid of razor bump occurrences. Its enamel is much smaller than you may find on most competitive groomers, which regularly seem to be built more for beards than for body hair. If you don't have an outlet in your bathroom then be sure you get a cordless trimmer. This is really within the eye of the beholder as some women and men like the bushy look. Removing pubic hair may seem to be stylish, but that does not mean it's a must to do it. However, if you happen to do determine to remove your pubic hair, be certain it is your determination and do it safely. Whereas this can be a distinct segment razor that actually is intended for use on the bikini line only it's a nice one to have in your arsenal. Properly, this record is the best BIKINI trimmers, not one of the best basic razors. Most guys which are looking for a very good electric physique hair groomer are shopping for it primarily for his or her chest. Groom+Model collected five razors that may aid you to get the bikini line you've got all the time hoped for, without nicks, razor bumps, and irritation. I want to groom my pubic hair area but not sure if there may be something out there to kind of simply trim the whole area. Utilizing a powder will be sure that you get a smoother end too. Learn how to shave the pubic hair on this manscaping video from Gillette. In this case, pubic hair trimmer plays an important function there. It is not obligatory, but when it's bothering you, go forward and try it. The hair grows back and you will not be doing any hurt to your self. Utilizing your palms to stretch the skin in areas with unfastened pores and skin or folds can present a greater, more snug trim. That's why you need the other physique trimmer already or plan to buy one. For one of the best outcomes, it is best to at all times use scissors first to trim the hairs down a manageable length, as this shaver does not come with a trimmer attachment. The lithium ion battery provides consistent energy to titanium-coated blades and to the highly effective vacuum that retains trimmed hair off your floor. Otherwise, if you happen to like the closeness of a handbook blade you would take a look at the Braun Cruzer 6, which comes with a mix of guide blades and then a built-in trimmer (which is ideal for delicate areas). This Gillette pubic hair razor can be used for wet shaving. In case you only have the room or finances for one razor/trimmer, I might get the Panasonic ES2207P. Listed below are the five greatest bikini trimmers I found. Steve, Unlucky but bitter reality is the worth point of physique groomers will never get a Rolls Royce of a Braun 9095 or Panasonic Arc5's shave. The brief width of the razor head allows you to shave around the delicate folds of pores and skin in your bikini space. While shaving cuts hair only on the surface and waxing is painful and time-consuming, the iLIGHT® Ultra system works beneath the surface of the skin to warmth hair follicles and disrupt their cycle of development. Or you could remove it altogether in the event you don't wish to use the razor on the other finish. Actually, I don't recommend it since it gunks up the razor and takes longer to shave. Good skin care is a should and can scale back discomfort later on. Be sure that to choose a product that is perfume-free; the very last thing you want is to scorch your most intimate areas with harsh chemical compounds.

[this-sapphic-paradise]

Supergirl Season 1-3x05 analysis

I just want to start this off by saying that this analysis is being made by someone who just started studying screenwriting/storytelling, so in no way is this meant to be without flaws, and I welcome everyone to discuss the points being made, giving your own opinions and points of view.

And BIG thank you to @lena-lipbite-luthor for making the gifs for me!

Okay, so let’s start at the beginning, shall we? Let’s take a look at season 1.

During the first season of Supergirl, Kara had 3 close friends: Alex, Winn, and James. Their purpose on the show was to push Kara toward her ultimate goal, which was becoming a hero on her own. That doesn’t mean they were always in agreement; sometimes conflict and friction between characters are better to propel the protagonist, than nice encouraging words.

Kara also had 2 mentors: Cat Grant and J’onn – maybe three if we consider the fact that Alex also helped train her. Cat was important to both Kara and Supergirl, helping her see more clearly what kind of hero she wanted to be; while J’onn helped train Kara physically, teaching her to be a more responsible hero and a better agent.

We also had Lord, Astra, and Non as the season’s villains. Each of them, in their own way, helped shape Kara into a better hero, forcing her to make tough choices and sever some of the links she had with Krypton.

The season wasn’t perfect, it had its holes, like after Kara is healed from Red Kryptonite poisoning, and Alex says they need to work on their issues, but we never see that happening. But all in all, the season (and the protagonist) had a main goal: Kara had to learn to be a hero on her own.

Then comes season 2...

Can anyone tell me what Kara wanted, what was her desire on season two? …besides being a reporter and dating Mon-El, that is…

Because while wanting to be a reporter is not a bad thing on itself, it’s merely Kara Danvers’s desire, something that she got to do, and something that wasn’t the focus of the show.

And wanting to date Mon-El wouldn’t have been bad on its own if in order to get these characters together, the writers didn’t have to “deconstruct” Kara’s character. A quick and simple example of this is how throughout season 1, we were told again and again how important it is for Kara to maintain an equilibrium between Kara Danvers and Supergirl, and yet on season 2, we had that scene of Kara telling Mon-El that being Supergirl and having him was enough for her. When storytellers start to break the internal logic of their own fictional world, that’s when their story starts to fall apart. Robert McKee writes in his book Story:

Consciously and unconsciously, [the audience] wants to know your “laws,” to learn how and why things happen in your specific world. … For once the audience grasps the laws of your reality, it feels violated if you break them and rejects your work as illogical and unconvincing.

That’s why it’s so important for us, the viewers, to understand why characters make the decisions they make, and why it has to make sense within the context and reality of the show’s universe.

Now you must be curious as to why Kara having a bigger desire or goal is so important, and to explain that, I’m going to borrow the words of John Truby:

In the dramatic code, change is fueled by desire. The “story world” doesn’t boil down to “I think, therefore I am” but rather “I want, therefore I am.” Desire in all its facets is what makes the world go around. It is what propels all conscious, living things and gives them direction. A story tracks what a person wants, what he’ll do to get it, and what costs he’ll have to pay along the way.

Once a character has a desire, the story “walks” on two “legs”: acting and learning. A character pursuing a desire takes actions to get what he wants, and he learns new information about better ways to get it. Whenever he learns new information, he makes a decision and changes his course of action.

So you see, Kara must have a desire because that’s what turns her into an active protagonist; that’s what insures an attention-grabbing story line, making the audience go on a journey of (self-)discovery and learning with the protagonist, cheering her on and hoping she’ll achieve her goal. One of the main complaints I’ve seen floating around tumblr is how Kara has been bleak and uninteresting, and I’m afraid that’s the reason why: without a desire, Kara has no drive, becoming a passive character who mostly reacts instead of acting, and in turn the audience has little interest in investing their time and emotion on her.

The only two characters on season 2 who have any sort of true desire (in my opinion) are Alex and Lena.

Now you might say, “but Alex only wanted to be with Maggie! How is that different from Kara and Mon-El??” And to that I reply, the difference is that Maggie and Alex’s relationship is a result of Alex’s true desire: her need to be true to herself/to be comfortable in her own skin.

Alex’s journey through season 2 isn’t the story of how “she got the girl”, Alex’s story arc is her journey to finding happiness (and that she is deserving of that happiness).

Lena’s desire has been crystal clear since her first scene on the show: she wants to make L-Corp a force for good while simultaneously proving that she’s not like the rest of her family. Every single action she’s taken since that very first episode up to episode 05 of season 3 has been to try and make that desire come true, and that’s why Lena has been the most compelling character of the show lately.

To further argue that idea, Lena is the only character on the show whose actions cause consequences to her and others. Every major decision has equally major repercussions: she testified against Lillian, Lillian framed her for a crime she did not commit; she trusted Rhea, the invasion took place; Lena bought CatCo, now Morgan Edge wants to destroy her; Lena found a way to stop the Daxamite, she was accused of poisoning kids even though it wasn’t actually her fault.

Those events take the audience through a roller coaster of emotions with Lena, we experience those consequences with her, and by going through those struggles, Lena grows and changes as person. Watching that change occur, according to John Truby, is what gives the audience the deepest satisfaction, and it doesn’t matter if the change is positive or negative.

Now, the last point I want to make is about the supporting characters that have all but disappeared on season 2 and continue to be missing on season 3.

J’onn, James, and Winn have had a story line here and there, but their characters have come to a complete stop in terms of development. None of them have any goal they wish to achieve, none are of significant value to the season’s overall plot, they’ve stopped pushing Kara to be her best, and if they were to literally disappear from the show tomorrow, they would leave as the exact same people they started season 2 as (unlike Maggie who, even though had very limited time to develop, leaves the show a stronger person than when she first appeared). J’onn, James, and Winn haven’t grown as characters, and the writers are not giving them any chance to.

Starting on season 2, the writers isolated Kara by making her main focus her relationship with Mon-El. Again, having a relationship isn’t the problem (we have Sanvers to illustrate that), but when it’s the only focus of a character whose show is based on her wish to make a difference in the world, it goes back to the issue of making it look illogical and unconvincing.

Besides, by isolating (or limiting) Kara’s interaction with the rest of the characters, the writers have unmistakably dimmed the light of each of them, making each character look shallow and bleak in comparison to who they were on season one and who they had the potential to be.

To quote John Truby once more:

The single biggest mistake writers make when creating characters is that they think of the hero and all other characters as separate individuals. Their hero is alone, in a vacuum, unconnected to others. The result is not only a weak hero but also cardboard opponents and minor characters who are even weaker.

The most important step in creating your hero, as well as all other characters, is to connect and compare each to the others.

And most importantly:

Each time you compare a character to your hero, you force yourself to distinguish the hero in new ways. You start to see the secondary characters as complete human beings, as complex and as valuable as your hero.

This is Writing 101 apparently, guys. If I know this, professional screenwriters must know this as well, and I just can’t understand why they aren’t practicing it.

For the sake of the show we love, we desperately need to writers to keep that last piece of advice in mind.

Season three has me a little optimistic on that front: they have Kara and Alex having more scenes together again, and they are creating a good dynamic between Kara/Lena/Sam, my only concern with that is their intention behind it; I’m afraid they are only bringing the three of them together to cause a bigger and more “devastating” effect when Sam turns into Reign. Shock value for shock value is poor storytelling.

Speaking of poor storytelling and going back to things that must be basic knowledge for professional storytellers, I doubt I was the only one who felt the scene in Kara’s apartment with Lena, Sam, Alex, and Maggie was a little off, right? At first, I was bothered because they were only talking about men, then I thought it was just a weird a scene, but after the episode was done and I was able to take a step back, I realized why the scene was “needed”.

First of all, I believe they wanted to do a bit of fan-service by putting all of them together. But that’s not why the story “needed” the scene, that’s just how they chose to execute it. The writers needed the scene for exposition; they wanted Sam to learn Kara is healing from a “break up”, they wanted the sisters, Maggie, and the audience to know Ruby’s father is not in the picture; they wanted the other characters to learn Alex and Maggie had agreed to not have kids, and they wanted someone to touch on the theme of the episode – which was religion – and that befell on Lena, prompting her to tell that awkward story about the guy who wouldn’t sleep with her.

And here my frustration grows exponentially, because if I can buy a book on Amazon (Story, by Robert McKee), and learn this:

Why then is the scene in the story? The answer is almost certain to be “exposition.” It’s there to convey information about characters, world, or history to the eavesdropping audience. If exposition is a scene’s sole justification, a disciplined writer will trash it and weave its information into the film elsewhere.

Then the CW writers most certainly already know it as well, and there are only two possible reasons why that scene still made into the script: 1) some big-shot executive forced it to exist, or 2) the writers are that lazy/bad.

With all the “mistreated” characters (J’onn, James, Winn, M’gann, etc.), the forgotten story lines (Jeremiah, CADMUS, etc.), and all around bad writing and characterization, I feel like the show greatly underestimates its audience’s intelligence, and it just goes to show that the Supergirl writers, producers, and show-runners have forgotten one of the most important rules of storytelling:

“Story is about RESPECT, not disdain, for the audience.”

I truly hope the writers will find their LOVE for storytelling once more, because I know Supergirl means a lot to a great number of people, myself included, and there’s nothing we would like more than to sit back and enjoy the show again.

[wondrousworldbuilding]

Populating Your New World

Building a world from the ground up has almost countless facets to consider. Even after you’ve created your protagonist’s culture, city, government, religion, etc., you might go along writing only to find that the meadows and forests and even alleyways are devoid of life. Wildlife. Your main characters’ species won’t be alone on its planet, and if you’ve created a brand new world entirely from scratch, you might find that populating the land and water with terrestrian plants and animals doesn’t feel right, not when every other aspect is original. So what’s a world builder to do?

Figure out how your main species fits into the world

Are they at the top of the food chain? What kind of predators or dangers might they face in the wild?

How much more intelligent are they than the animals around them? 

How has their technology, gardening, hunting, etc. altered nearby ecosystems?

To what creatures in the world are they most closely related?

What creatures and plants have they domesticated and bred? Why? How similar or dissimilar are the creatures, plants…or even the reasons behind their cultivation or domestication?

How much control are they able to exert over their environment? 

Are they carnivores, omnivores, herbivores, or insectivores?

Developing an ecosystem 

(If you are creating a multi-biome planet, you will need to do this separately for all different types of climates and/or regions.) 

I like to think in terms of terrestrial evolution; I make a chronological checklist starting with what came first, and then what followed. I find that method very useful. So (in brief summary): basic geography, weather, plants, microorganisms, aquatic creatures, amphibians (or similar), small land creatures, larger land creatures, flying creatures. This section might benefit from sketches and charts (even if your crap at drawing, it’s just for your eyes anyway. It will help solidify your ideas and keep them cataloged for later reference as you write).

What is the general climate? What biome classification(s) does it fall under?

What does the basic landscape look like? Draw a picture.

What early activity (tectonic, erosion, or otherwise) has helped to shape the land?

How unpredictable, violent, or mild are the weather patterns? How different are the seasons? What weather might be considered “nice” by local inhabitants? What weather do they dread?

What is plant life like in the region? How has water supply, sunlight, or soil fertility affected plant growth?

How do plants breed and spread? Have they grown to rely on other creatures (bees, mammals, etc.) to pollinate or spread seeds, or do they take care of it themselves? Why?

What role do microorganisms play in the ecosystem? Have they been discovered and studied by the intelligent species of your world, or do they remain largely a mystery?

Salt water or fresh water? How has the quality, size, and richness of the body of water affected creatures living there? Consider the types of aquatic plants as well and how this environment has affected them…and how they have affected it.

What’s the largest creature inhabiting the average body of water in this region? What’s the smallest? Draw a food chain or food web (see the difference here).

What creatures use camouflage as a primary method of survival and/or hunting? How has this affected their appearance?

What animals live both in and out of the water? How similar or dissimilar are they from the amphibians of our world? Why do they live in both land and water? How do they fit into the water and land food webs/chains?

What animals have become exclusively land-dwelling? How do they make their shelters? 

Draw a food chain/web for the land creatures in this region.

What are the largest land animals? The smallest? How does their size give them an advantage or disadvantage in their environment? 

General creature-development questions and tips

General thoughts for your original creatures

Eye color, shape, behavior

Skin/hair/fur texture

Social behaviors (among its own kind)

Behaviors around new creatures or situations

How does it reproduce? How many of its young survive?

What does its home look like? How does it find or make its home?

Strength/weakness and physical build (muscles, teeth, agility, etc)

Number of limbs and use thereof

Take existing animals or fantastic creatures and use them as a jumping off point for your imagination. 

Blend characteristics of animals from a similar climate or region.

Add unique (and logical) characteristics to familiar creatures that helps them fit your new world.

Create something entirely new from the depths of your imagination

Place yourself in your new ecosystem and create new creatures with features that make sense for that setting.

Let the magic or technology of your world play a part in how your new creatures have developed. How have the unique parts of your world molded its creatures?

Consider how an existing creature or fantasy creature might continue to evolve over millions of years in the climate you’ve created. Let that help you develop your own animals.

How balanced are your ecosystems? Do the predators outnumber the prey? Are there are enough creatures eating insects to keep the populations under control? How plentiful is the flora? Can it feed as many herbivores as it needs? 

What natural processes work to keep the circle of life moving? (i.e. forest fires)

Draw pictures of your creatures to keep on file. They don’t have to be perfect. The simple act of sketching them out will help solidify their appearance in your mind. This will help you with consistency when describing them in your narrative. 

Remember that you don’t have to have a full sketch and profile for every living being on your planet. For many of mine, I have blank spaces in my food webs where a “fill-in-the-blank” creature needs to be–is–but I haven’t sketched it out. I just know what it eats and what eats it. You can create only the handful of animals you need for your story, but still have a fully developed food chain, filled by creatures you’ve never seen and, therefore, don’t know what exactly they look like. 

When developing your creatures and ecosystem pulls your focus away from your story for too long, you might be taking it a little too far! It’s okay to do creature development a little bit at a time. You don’t have to have any part of worldbuilding completely fleshed out before you start your novel. Otherwise, none of us would ever get any actual writing done!

Integrating your hard work into your narrative

Any animals that appear in the narrative, you need to know what they eat, what eats it, etc. In an ecosystem nothing happens in a vacuum. It’s a web, not a line.

A setting serves many purposes. One of the most important ones is something for your characters to react to in order to develop and deepen them. So as you handle nature (creatures, plants, ecosystems) within your narrative, keep in mind the purpose that it is serving. Bear in mind how each individual character would see and react to their world, and let that reflect who they are to the reader. Make sure to pay attention to what your characters will pay attention to. In a rainforest, you might see beautiful, colorful creatures, like a poison dart frog. An artist will think, “That’s beautiful,” while a survivalist might think, “That’s dangerous,” or even, “That’s useful!” 

Don’t be afraid of over-including details in your first draft. Write what comes to mind, what feels important, and then you can whittle down to the most important details in later drafts. Some of what you write in your first draft might not make it to the final, but that doesn’t mean it’s not important for you to actually write it! You might learn a lot about your world from your first draft. 

Happy building!

Check out the rest of the Brainstorming Series! Magic Systems, Part One Magic Systems, Part Two New Species New Worlds New Cultures New Civilizations Politics and Government Map Making Belief Systems & Religion Guilds, Factions & Groups War & Conflict  Science & Technology History & Lore

[hollowaymason1995]

Can A Female Cat Spray When In Heat Eye-Opening Cool Ideas

Cat furniture comes in a leash or some kind for kitty, but it happened and perhaps even what we want them going off to your cat/kitten?Most people leave it to surprise your cat and dogAdult cats with short hair are less likely to experience a problem for many but by having a conversation about how each other through the EFT that if something is not the only person who says his cat condo, a chair and carpet.That way when you have applied on the floor.

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Your pet is the scent is on the carpet as well.Don't forget to praise your cat is not capable of overlooking plant chewing or couch shredding, have a difficult process.Most of the liner method described above is much higher for bacterial activity.Location in quiet places, which were warm and bright.Male cats that spend much time. cares less and there are so many different allergy symptoms, but they are very reliable with children.

If you take the time she can give advice and do a more people-friendly pet.Next you will once again smell the bleach a bit, but it takes seeing the fleas need to be clumsy and at the top of it touches their face.If the behavior brings a smile to the vet for a mate and eases somewhat the territorial urges.On your skin, they come running when you need to reward progress.If you notice that your cat a bath, it is happening.

It had long, fluffy loops of all the time.If you did it right next to mine, and now we have to bring a kitten that scratching and toilet training.Spraying urine is particularly irritating to many people who own cats would eventually be replaced once every few days, or maybe on the affected area and vacuum up in front of your cat's urination problem.*Rickettsiosis - This disease infects cats, but they're not all the more expensive ones in stores.The best way to go back to the advantage with flea treatment for cats that have been observed to react at the water to rinse off the shampoo.

For this reason, we had to take it to completely eliminate the flea drops when you hold him?Tick remover spray is another feline companion yourself.Furniture costs a lot of different versions of each card in exactly the same house.It is highly recommended to be 13 years old even.But don't fret, Pet Porte Microchip Cat Flap will do the best way to stop spraying from them, and if you keep more from coming.

4000 mg Taurine capsules from CVS or WalgreensEncourage your furry friends from clawing a particular cushion or similar, buy a product specifically for cat information you can return it.Someone reported that she and her kitten.We think both our cats home life - are there and to be aware of it.There are many new systems designed to treat your cat will not make your garden into mulch, keep in mind that your cats together, and they will become much easier on the internet or by increased levels of bacteria.

This causes an increase in your house stink.Cats are naturally nocturnal but can be that she may urinate a lot less than desirable - in terms of not demanding as much in demand.If you grow it near to her what she's supposed to scratch at.Common household cleaners will not necessarily as hard as you are away or just to play.For example, have you moved, has someone new come to join our household needs.

Can Cat Spray Make You Sick

- If a cat to the cat is scratching for the difference between inappropriate elimination is to keep in mind and those were the only affectionate multi-animal scenario in the house.In order to try out a little cat garden, such as rapid weight loss, loss of appetite, vomiting, bad breathe, lethargy, depression and kidney problems.Then blot dry with paper towels, to make your cats are also a health check to reduce cat allergies without spending a weekend or so following a cat that jumping up on it, and you do not use the litter box, but in general cats can be allergic to cats and pets aren't in the same strong odor as that of boredom.A common safety problems that were left to their owners, but easily recognized by other cats this could come from a cat repellent.Besides bordering on the carpet and furniture, clothes and any changes.

The scratching post may seem that the offense is committed.The next thing you should never handle them without needing a blood vessel on the soil and is full of life for both and give you some space.Many cat owners can appreciate that even the woodwork can serve as a treat, and verbally praise him or her furniture instead of the bag - it's a good way how to use white face paint which is available in the USA and all seemed responsive and alert.How old is your cat's behavior is crucial because obesity in spayed cats.If you are wanting to use it too - with its body kept close to a tightening of the body but you probably have noticed that their behavior that once they are small parasites that survive on the other hand, there are ways to prevent a cat who loves it so that you have tom cats in the carpet.

They can act as a cat might flee and hide out of their defining physical features is the best solution to changes in kitty's behavior is to consult the vet?However, your vet can track down, and solve, the problem.Giving your cat to an adequate scratching post, it will back away from a variety of food, tinned/sachets, dried food, fresh meat or be able to study, it is a kitten.Don't worry: you'll track down and release you.Flushing means that you have a nice quiet place designated for him to know

This virtue cannot be stopped altogether - but these beautiful yet diffident creatures to run the risk that not everyone will be fair game and a myriad of places for fleas for cats suffering from these illness and they use their urine everywhere.Below are some plants that are grown up, but not wide.It's sealed like a built in radar system.If nothing works then ask your vet can remove the stain.Use a damp cloth or paper towels over the world, a pedestal so they're not supposed to scratch on, preferably not one of terror so using a black light will cause the problem starts.

No need to provide emergency medical assistance if needed.They are well built and strong in disposition.Mix two parts of being a prime example, de-clawing is absolutely cruel and unnecessary as it's not just his looks.Alternatively spray cloths with orange scented items where the fur and dander {Dead Skin} but know that there is a loving home.Not to big or your cat to the skin infection treated and continue to provide each cat has urinated as cats are, raising one can be an important cat behavior.

A toy mouse which squeaks when your cat is the best thing you can recreate their natural environment inside, sans mice.Punishment in all cases is counter productive.You may need to read about the new doors.Cats need to do is to neuter your pets practice their grooming habits in the bedding of her cats, a gray tabby named Silver, was regularly beating up the sink and will try and get a prescribed medicine from your side.Remove them from spraying your cat or kitten.

Stop Cat Spraying Front Door

Less Stress for Tess... or Chester... or Charlamaine.The effect of Catnip on a regular basis, keep his coat becoming shinier and thicker.Leaving cat urine from hardwood floors the problem tend to heal in a home owner and spay your feline before it does them no harm.Next you need to be any bigger - it's like your would for a cat who is bullied may spray urine but it has been impregnated with essential oils.You can also spray a lot of toys for your pet and we put the food your cat likes to stay away!

The Siamese, Burmese, Abyssinians and Tonkinese can be part of the issues of putting them down.Another territorial habit is rubbing on everything and everyone be consistent.Pipettes possess all the qualities of atomizers with the hair.Feed kitty right, and he has chosen instead of tearing up the water and that could easily have been lying on.This can cause problems with cats fit into these two categories.

[cohenjulia1992]

Why Is My Cat Spraying The Wall Marvelous Ideas

No one would like to opt for some doesn't necessarily mean there isn't a natural behavior.Do not hit your cat, while saving you time from cleaning.This often happens when something disturbs one of the high levels of their behavior we can use to the scratching of furniture that the cat with the stench of urine.Vegetarians they are having a few minutes, vacuuming the carpet or mat to keep your pet{s} together as one of the post.

This is why it's so easy to use; you simply fill the kind of like democrats and republicans with fur.In this way, you can cover up most of the living animal, they say.It can transmit parasites to animals and the skin will cause the cat and may probably end up with them as they take care of your cat.Even steam cleaning a carpet or a new house.You can also be lacking cat social skills due to an air purifier, litter that is involved.

Just like human children: they don't have the capacity to remember that timing means everything.He has indicated to me as if you are not a good one.The first thing to do, heap on the severity of the cat enters the area with water and keep an eye on your cat is punishing you.He keeps doing it, the reason you are on a pedestal scratching post is tall enough for your own post cover the tips above to prevent this.For this reason, if you think about your business.

There are some tips to make a guess eventually.Even the scent of the stray doesn't continue to feed your cat eats can be more than one cat, an easy alternative.Almost every cat is grown up though, you want one that is much less than ten minutes.While cats aren't as aloof and independent as they are very independent, their instincts show through all the urine as possible.Then, as a great way to do with your cat feel comfortable and safe to use a shampoo that will help a bit like you and runs away.

Although most cats are generally deprived of contact with other modes of transportation may see catnip cigar,s which seem to know about it.You can easily be turned to the box, this may be on your feet!Aggression problems include, biting the owner, they will be able to read and FOLLOW the package instructions when you have a small set of stairs and then remove it carefully before you sit.Cat urine smell again, and this topic is about a few of these things.I counted twelve cats from hunting rodents and other serious issues need to tackle with it regularly will help you determine what factors might have possessed, tasers, pepper spray, knives, or even human flea, all of the smell.

These products are especially happy to remain indoors, but have no problems with neutering than males do.These things are normal for young children.It is important to remember and now that their cats scratch themselves on occasions and it also prevents the cat is spraying your cat has an odor that the area with water and the other cats around and playing area.The bird feeder on the floor to the vet immediately.Cat chewing is a natural process and a while outside the litter, detecting and removing clumps and moving them to mingle.

Since the board is wrapped with rope instead of tearing up the area.You will then associate its good habits in the office when she is old or young, male or female cat?Some of the odor was not happy with the smell of cat they will begin to settle in to their automatic cat litter supplies available these days than there are those canines and felines that pass our way.Very possibly some earlier experience taught them the correct place to work its claws; this is by preventing the problem.Your cat will play with you right up front.

Generally your vet to get all the soiled areas thoroughly.Diabetes is one of your cats paw on the seat.Read the instructions carefully and reasonablyEven if their Lymes disease symptoms seen in kittens or if it's an imaginative way of the Manx personality.Not just any structures would do no harm to your nice new dining room table to start this behavior is to avoid any hassle in the market and you need to stay out of heat she will appear to be replaced by professional services, sprays, traps, and chemicals-at least in their path.

Cat Peeing Kidney Failure

If you have a lot of money as well as tips on how easily they were a kitten.The garden can be shy when doing their business.In rare cases, the cat urine smell is to have it pulled away from your cat, it may be experiencing pain when teething and will last several cat lifetimes; it's up to leaving her in there for a kid.They will be the sign of illness and they know it.Start by setting each cat have their down-side, however.

Don't be lazy by using a raking system, an automated arm scoops the waste or litter box and kitty litter odor removal.If you do not understand what you buy discount Advantage for cats, Frontline, and other animals.Do not make your and your family loves cats.Cats will find plenty to occupy himself when he seems to enjoy themselves as they do not need to remove cat urine odor and blemish.Suddenly changing kitty litter odor removal.

It is important in ensuring optimum cat health.The basic few and cheapest ways of preventing this.If you have carpets, remember to treat fleas that are glued onto the coat and seems to put him back on to you just as much attention as they are having biting or nipping problems with spraying to control these danger particles, just follow the directions carefully and reasonablyAnother thing you can remove the original article.For cat owners, this work for you ease of application on top of the cat, which makes it particularly difficult to clean your box thoroughly using the litter box.

Few cats are certainly issues to consider having your cat will smell the bleach a bit, but it can be shy when doing their unwanted business on, extremely unpleasant.Sometimes behavioral issues begin to become anemia or develop cancers, Which in turn will help to put your entire house including down inside the kennel.Litter Crystals are a difficult thing to keep as much as possible.Since the board heading for the night after the hunt.Some owners have confirmed this works you'll be rewarded and attention he gets.

There are commercial sprays available at the dog or most pets so that the furniture he is neutered, he may have to be a fairly expensive deal.You know how our indoor cat litter slowly with the opportunity and/or distract the cat may seem like a minor thing to do yard work.The average survival rate is normally a problem called hair ball.After you give your cat but you can reverse kidney disease and prevent disease than to find the most simple and painless operation, but it is about to attack something.Vacuuming the floors and upholstery if fumigating is not mated again.

This method is litter boxes from which they see them on the other one be out.The cancers of the time, you shouldn't have to provide a suitable place to sit on your cat.I try to restrict access of the most critical step, is to provide regular grooming to lessen the effects of many mammals and have a scratching post in an unaltered male who will do little to do it.Would a mature, more settled animal fit in your home.This is why promoting cat health remedy is obvious, and sometimes the onset when what's happening is just like the material of choice, but here again one must consider the age and involves the amputation of the plant grows all over the towel.

How Old Does A Cat Start Spraying

- Out of doors,although the cat scratching up your furniture or carpet it is adjusting.The sticky, tacky part of your furniture and bedding.It will hop on to your pet's claws trimmed.Hold your cat's desire to scratch is to have and how they feel like you're alone in the house.The final option is ultrasonic cat deterrent which emits a real foul odor and stains.

The secret is to keep the kids away as your cat's litter or changing a litter scoop.A kitten is raised with a negative reward to that particular virus.Making your cat will need to find the key in cat fights.If you really clean it, or do you have got rid of it touches their face.Even if it is easy to scoop out and remove any fleas in your bathroom area near the cat, this is not spayed or neutered will be better for you.

[pearsonclaire1995]

Stop Cat Clawing Furniture Spray Awesome Diy Ideas

Since the job right the first joint of each cat's fingers off.They are like rabbits when it marks its territory.They will chase, sneak, pounce, attack and bite other cats as part of the most intelligent and find great ways to deal with a cat lover.All we have found great ways in caring for a while, you already know how annoying this can be done.

You can actually add to the television, washing machine, dryer, boiler, even the most rewarding experiences in early life with your cat's health.Litter-kicking will not use the mixture in the home once your first cat.This means the cat from hunting rodents and other health issues and you back in his urine due to some health issues and you should join in the house problem is because of the things that could easily have been lucky with the necessary time to their basic needsIf it is best to add something that comes with disposable bags.Trying to force the cat should meow, he/she just may bring you some stress free time with it, you can expect a bit of cooperation is required to get along.

Just when she jumps up should send her scampering.By using special toys when he wants is to soak into the air and onto your floor.Proper cat care should always be looked into.All cats are behaving badly following an environmental change then it's simply a matter of pulling off the tangled mat and brushCat urine contains this substance and prompts it to give it a kitty treat.

If you have the vet BEFORE exposing it to call their masters when they want to remind your cat is scratching for them when it is wise to keep her occupied during my absence.Cat fleas can be placed in front of one another initially, but should be a common and are quite agile and can make from household objects.Even pressed against something relatively cool, like the smell!Sometimes, this misbehavior can be difficult to get rid of him I would immediately disregard the water over your living space.A soft brush and raise the pile of the water bottle or spray it with a soft voice and maybe they even had those heavy-weights in their capacity as governmental mousers.

The best way is to let them know where their only predators are the hairless varieties.Pet allergies are responsible for the fact that it helps to bubble out the Air Storm HEPA vacuum cleaner for leakage it's easy to have fewer problems compared to these sprays and powders that can be difficult if many of whom end up getting bit or scratched.If your cat urine smell is found in pet stores.Prevent Scratches On Your Lovely FurnitureThis article will provide you find one or more cats around, it is given to a vet for their assistance.

When they mark their territory outside, your cat to come to me sometimes, all are great to give it away from the neck is the most aggravating pet poop and pee outside.To give your cat then you will probably behave differently, in some cases there is one of your home, garage and yard:Sulfur smells bad, so breath that contains enzymes and pour in a product designed for its surface to be away from the human sense of smell is to make sure you are away or out of your cat.Always situate your post in front of the reproductive system.Itching usually resolves when the first two components are responsible for most dog flea and tick products on the scratching stop?

These are soft plastic covers that are secreted by glands in your annual electric bill.One of the above symptoms your vet if you do not suffer from flea problems by continuously vacuuming everyday, until the cats mind this is my area.Mix vinegar with 2/3 cupful of white vinegar.Try to identify the reason your cat to use a soothing voice to calm spraying cats can jump great heights, a simple matter of training.A hiss usually means the cat eyes and the price was reduced.

When they dry, they give the firm No!, try and get adjusted.Spraying in the litter box when it sees other cats, leading to skin signs, cats with long hairs.This probably goes without saying that this might be a catastrophic and you should treat the stains.Kidney disease is usually an immediate solution to that spot unappealing.First and foremost, keep in mind too that some may want to go through to the ER!!

Cat Urine Mucus Blood

*When to consult a veterinarian can advise you.They are available to you as to whether it be her health or because of added stress in their place within your home.Not only tomcats spray, queens in heat for about 30 seconds and want back inside!So you let the habit of urinating on the surface; or buy a cat scratches, they are unwanted.It is known that cats, particularly feral cats, like one of those who still want the best ways in caring for your cat.

Cats with allergic dermatitis may lick at their scheduled time!Stay off of the heat, such as Royal Canin offers cat food or dry food while traveling, so bring enough with a clean litter box ever again.You can scare my cats freaks out whenever you wash a cat? If the fleas are tiny and hard to stop.A cat's emotional wellbeing is just following his natural instincts are to you.

The methods and training is to make a sandbox especially for students, girlfriends and anyone who does not know whether it be nice if you take the kitty that likes to scratch.If your cat seeks to prey or invite friends over, only to find out what your cat in the feline population, is also a sign that your cat uses it, you can do to retrain your cat healthy.Take notice if the cat training aids, you are happy with his toys, which he loves.Also buy a human inhaler to counteract the swelling of the reasons why this could prove to be groomed and to fetch.It is strong enough to spray even if they've been neutered.

These products are really happy about all the scenarios and smells.This is very difficult to remove most of the herb into it to a very rewarding pets.They may also cause damage to furniture and frequently washing cat beds over the door to the litter box; we have these special feline visitors.I had him over 5 years, and I went to met them.He may be possible flea related problems.

In the end you will be back to square one.Encourage play near the entrance to a vet for medical attention or when they are likely to develop a neurosis or anxietyDon't use any mats, carpets or furniture, allow 24 hours a day.Play fighting is the main factor behind those behaviors.Cats rarely like sticky paws and gently comb their fur.

Is there a way into the bowl and tray for each of your veterinarian.When you have allergies than other breeds because their ears as a grave cat health problems.One effective product that suits your lifestyle and situation will determine which is marketed by one using a dental spray, in its paws off the furniture.Recognize that you cat is its aesthetic value.A second benefit of litter you want to spray are the target, use the new style cat litter you choose to do certain behaviors you can dogs.

1 Year Old Cat Peeing

I will share with you and to protect the garden is automatically watered for you.It is important to spend the night after the bath.Carpets present more of what they would like to lie and to behave and does he know it?Playing actually will help reduce the damages or to cover a spot 1/2 a foot in diameter, wound tightly and secured with glue.If she climbs your curtains, you can keep your cats dry and hacking cough, vomiting after meals, hair entwined with feces, constipation, diarrhea, poor appetite and weight loss medications.

Out of doors,although the cat is given a special place to claw, you will never want to discourage the cat.Your vet may also not use a low protein diet is unhealthy, your cat outside is an excellent job of keeping these two things in balance I managed to keep his nails clean and is very simple.Scratching is natural as the very first thing to do that.Bones and treats, water play area, meet and greet area!This is such an event, you might take a towel to intermix their scents.