#land shrimp you mean cockroach

[scienceisfood]

All of them are my favorite I am eating this entire food lore and I can't stop

What kind of meals/food can you only find in Ebbott? (And be specific! Don't just say "magic" Ratsoh)

lets start with a list of all old (and some new) ebott only crops and animals:

Powder shrooms: these are gears favorite mushrooms. It’s a small honey colored mushroom with a black circle on the head. They have a very nice buttery taste and can be eaten raw but are best as stuffing for savory dishes. They get the name because they dry fast and the powder was used as flour for the nomads. They also grow like weeds and are easy to maintain

Snap root: it was showcased in the 1k event. It’s a spiny purple skinned root with a brown flesh. It gets its name from the way the vines “snap” up when sunlight hits it. The root has a lovely taste like a cross between pumpkin, sweet potato, and nutmeg and is mostly used in pies and sweet dishes

Crab “apples”: a fruit shaped like a crab. It’s technically not an apple despite the similar taste. It’s the most common fruit of the underground and the farmtale valley. The fruits are slightly sour and rarely larger than the palm of a small hand. The most common shape is the crab shape, but they also come in ducks, pyramids and spirals.

Flossy sticks: it’s a celery like vegetable. The plant looks like a normal leafy bush with very long stems, but as soon as you cut one stem off, it explodes into thousands of tiny floss like strands. They can be boiled into pasta, dried and powdered to be used as flour, or eaten raw. They have a crisp lemon and basil like taste.

Twigs: nobody knows why the vegetable is called this because it looks nothing like a twig. It’s a large orange long cucumber like vegetable. Normally about 3 feet long and 6 inches wide. It has a woodsy tea leaf taste to it. Also puréeing the flesh and mixing it with alcohol is what makes drinks that can temporarily change hair and eye color.

Lion lily: the fruit is named after the striking maned flowers that come before it. The flowers look like lilies but at the base of the flower is a fluffy golden “mane” of cotton strands. The fruit is the size of a tangerine and is golden and perfectly round with a large pit in the middle. It has an extremely sweet taste and soft juicy flesh. It’s so sweet it often doesn’t need sugar added when used in cakes and pies.

Golems salad: a massive fkn head of kale. Like this thing is freaking the size of a car. It’s a magical variety that grows when eight heads of kale are planted in a circle, and carefully nurtured by a golem monster each day. The result is that monstrosity. Overnight the kale comes together, morphing into one plant and will grow to monstrous sizes. It’s said the bigger the salad the stronger the golem

Tumblers: it’s identical to a normal cabbage and tastes like a normal cabbage, but if you wait too long to harvest it, it will literally jump out of the ground and run away at the vibrations of footsteps. It also hisses.

Sweet salt: a spice from the underground that is ground from the seeds of the fir trees that grow in snowdin. It’s very sweet and is described to taste like a blend of brown sugar, cinnamon and black pepper. Tastes like gyftmas

Gyftmas ornaments: the same seeds you can get from snowdins fir trees can also be peeled and pickled. They make a lovely sweet sour treat and are usually dyed to match gyftmas colors.

Tarotile: a flat leaf from a magical plant related to poison ivy. The plant is toxic to humans but delicious to monsters. It’s banned outside of ebotts shores, and has to be labelled very clearly before being sold. Monsters describe it as tasting like a delicious wild berry blend but with a leafy texture. Makes a delicious tea and is wonderful in sweet salads

Sea eggs: an ebott only variety of seaweed will grow these pockets of soft cucumber like fruit in the stalks. Reportedly all the sea monsters have seen and harvested this plant before the crash. It tastes a bit more sour and citrusy than a normal cucumber but has all the texture and water content of one. Weirdly enough there’s nothing magic about this plant. It just likes ebott

Cattails: not to be confused with the non magical reeds that grow near water, cattails is a popular vegetable grown in ebott. It prefers dryer land, only wanting water every few days. It resembles a golden long grass, and when it’s ready to harvest, the grass ends open up to reveal a fluffy thick fiber inside. The result is a pretty feathery plant resembling a cats tail, hence the name. Pull the fibers and on the ends are little grains that are boiled to use a porridge, a flour substitute, or the binding agent of ebotts famous lion jello.

Heartyheads: a thick leafy bush, what makes it classed as magic is that it literally turns into rose quarts when exposed to fire. But it’s not reliable as a source of quarts since it slowly turns back when cooled down. The young leaves can only be eaten raw but are an amazing source of iron and are said to help with inflammation. This plant can only be killed by being dug out of the ground and left to dry out.

Fizzlers: a tomato like plant that grows small baby tomato sized pink, purple and blue fruits (ornamental ones only for blue) the fruit is a key ingredient in fizzy drinks in place of carbonation. The fruit produces lots of bubbles when exposed to water. They’re delicious and taste just like that fake grape flavor humans love

Gauzeberries: a berry that came from the outer-AUs. They all say they found the mysterious bush growing on the asteroids of the asteroid belt they orbited. The bush has silver white leaves, is very small, rarely growing higher than 2 feet, and produces small white berries encased in a gauzelike silk pouch. The plant only grows in cold temperatures and must be kept in fridge rooms with natural sunlight any month except winter. The berries have a crisp grape like taste and when eaten, causes one to float a few inches off the ground for an hour

Rougish grapes: this is a grape variety developed by two monsters from birdfell, and the rights bought by harpy. It’s a very large crimson red grape, each individual fruit nearly the size of an apricot, and is able to be harvested from summer to fall. The grapes have a sweet but peppery taste and are best fermented into wine. They are also proven to be amazing with hair loss.

Baited breath: a small thistle-like herb that grows beautiful thorny blue flowers. The flowers when they open in the mornings make a sighing noise, like someone exhaling. The seeds of this plant are sweet and aromatic, so are often added to a wide variety of dishes. They were also historically chewed on to clean teeth and are known to help humans and monsters alike recover from cavities

Dragons breath: the larger cousin to bated breath, this large thistle like herb grows to five feet and can make thorny black flowers the size of a humans head. The dragons breath flowers let out a brief puff of flame when they open in the morning, and their seeds are large and spicy in flavor. A very popular snack through all of ebott. They are also ground into a spice called dragons hoard.

Whimselites: this is a small bundle of leaves on a whimsot plant, a low growing vine. It was found in every underground au, and continues to be grown and harvested in the underground. If new leaf growths aren’t harvested, eventually the little bundles open up and pop off the mother plant to start a new one. They go great in salads and taste a lot like rocket leaves.

Snails Bane: the plant looks like a rock, but if you step on it, it’ll squish down secreting a snail like slime. It’s also very toxic to snails and should never be kept near them. The plant when cooked, is cut open and left to dry in the sun, before being sliced and put into stews as a flavoring agent. It tastes like chicken and is a favorite among ebotts vegetarians.

Loomy runners: a small magical radish that has two large roots at the end of its bulb. When exposed to fire, the radish will stand up on its roots and run away like a wobbly baby learning to walk. It must be cut up in pieces before being eaten, and sometimes the radish pieces will still flip around in the oven so covered baking dishes are recommended

Garwins Gourd: a large twisted gourd native to farmswap, garwins gourd is an attractive flamingo pink color when ripe and has a sweet taste not unlike a sweet potato. It can be cut up and puréed for pies or stews, boiled and mashed, or sautéed, but it cannot be eaten raw as heat is needed to bread down the thick fibers of the raw vegetable. The gourd also can be dried and is used as a cute storage container by many farm monsters. In recent years, fans of the plant have been able to grow yellow and orange varieties

Bloodroot: edible by monsters, but must be strained several times to be safe for human consumption, bloodroot is a thick large carrot like root that “bleeds” a crimson liquid when cut. The root eaten on its own tastes like a woody earthy grape mixed with a parsnip. It strangely smells like beef until cooked. The reasons for this is that the plant uses an animals digestive tract to strip the thick outer coat on its seeds. And when they come out the “other end” they can safely sprout when freed from their confines. Carnivorous animals are drawn to the root

Claymore mushroom: if directly stepped on by something heavy, this large blue grey mushroom will explode into large chunks catapulted into the air at speeds of up to 15 mph. It’s native to the factory monsters and farm AUs. The farmtale monsters made a winter sport of catapulting the mushrooms before the crash. The mushroom can be safely harvested by cutting it at the base of the stem, rendering it non-exploding.

Triangle of the coast: a magical cousin to broccoli and cauliflower, the triangle is a triangle shaped broccoli like growth that grows directly in the sand of beaches, and is farmed along a section of ebotts coastline in the winter months. The vegetable is a yellowish green color and tastes just like young broccoli. And for some reason, when picked, it secretes a pheromone that attracts crustacean sea creatures. so it’s also used as fish bait and a vegetable

Ferris-weeds: a cousin to the yarrow herb, Ferris weeds are a magical variety native to the farm and Drake AUs. It’s a tall growing herb, reaching up to 10 feet in height, and has a beautiful pale pink flower in the spring and summer. It’s mainly used to line fences as decor, but the flowers can also be eaten raw, pickled, or sautéed. What makes it magical is that it’s known to provide a full days worth of vitamin D in one meal, no matter the amount of flowers eaten. No one knows how the plant accomplished this

Pygmy pomegranates: this trees only been an official breed in the last five years. Developed by a monster from farmtale, Pygmy pomegranates are a cross breed between crab apples and standard pomegranates. They are perfectly dome shaped with a circle top and a completely flat bottom. The fruit is small, onky the size of a child’s fist, and full of orange pomegranate seeds with a purple skin. They taste just like a normal pomegranate

Deaths pearl: a small bundle of leaves, found deep in the ocean. The roots and lower halves of the leaves are pitch black, while the tips are a transparent blue. The vegetable gets its name from seafell, where a fraction of monsters fought to the death with a sea creature for a patch of the plants. This vegetable is completely edible from its roots, leaves, stems and seeds. It tastes very similar to celery mixed with cucumber. Nowadays it’s cultivated by sea monsters all along ebotts coast and is considered a staple vegetable due to being able to grow year round.

Star seeds: contrary to the name, this is not from the outer AUs but was an underground crop. The seeds of an echo flower are the plants only edible part, and are ground into a fine iron filled flour. They’re rather bitter though, so bread made from them nowadays is often paired with cheese to flavor it.

Spiderbloom: pollinated only by spiders, this plant flowers in the fall and produces fruits in the winter. It creates an eerie black and purple blossom who’s pollen only sticks to spider silk in order to pollenate. The fruits have a soft flesh and taste a bit like figs and blueberries.

Golden flowers: a favorite of the royals, and ebotts national flower and crop. Golden flowers are a beautiful gold magic buttercup that can be dried and turned into tea. They have a lovely effect of softening the hair and skin, and humans claim the tea helps with acne. It’s delicious, sweet and has small hints of lemon in the taste. The flowers are mostly indoor plants as they burn up in direct sunlight.

Mandrakes: a four point magical root that screams when unearthed, the mandrake root is extremely popular for its soft potato like flesh, and the large lineup of nutrients it holds. It’s often mashed, used as a potato substitute, or thrown into stews and soups. It’s a popular baby food as well as its mild taste is comforting for kids, and the quality of it helps parents ensure picky eaters get what they need in a meal

Frog stool mushroom: a large aquatic mushroom resembling a lily pad. It’s found in shallow freshwater areas like lakes and larger parts of streams. This large mushroom is nutty in flavor and is often planted in ponds by farmers for not only its flavor, but also to filter the water on their property to make it safe for the animals to drink. It’s recommended to only eat the small young ones as the large ones after so many years of filtering are more waste than nutrients.

Fishweed: a seaweed that grows along the seaside cliffs of ebott. It’s named after its strong fishy smell. It’s dried and cut into strips and eaten as a snack like jerky or chips

Pearwood tree: this tree has a beautiful bark pattern in the shape of sliced pears. When dry, the bark begins to chip and is easy to peel off. The bark can be infused into drinks giving a crisp grape and lettuce flavor, and has the magical effect of making harmless sparks come out of one’s mouth when they speak. Because of the attractiveness of the trees bark, and the pretty pale green fir spines as leaves, it’s also a popular garden ornament plant as well as a crop

Cinderpetals: a small magic herb with red tipped star shaped leaves. This plant as a defense mechanism will burst into flame when the leaves are picked off. Don’t be alarmed though, the fire is harmless and even adds to the flavor as many monsters say. The leaves have a crisp almost citrusy flavor and are put into potions, drinks and energy tonics due to their natural caffeine content.

Boarberry: it was only seen in horrorfarm and drakefell before the crash. It’s a wild berry bush that parasites off of trees, growing on the sides of the trunks. The berries are a creamy pale green and taste like a bitter plum. They were traditionally used to flavor meads, and were made into jams, pie fillings and baked into breads.

Honeybeans: a climbing magic bean plant that only grows near beehives. It will grow around the hive protecting the bees by secreting pheromones that deter would-be predators, and in return it feeds off the honey as well as the soil near the hive and sunlight. Because of this, the beans are deliciously sweet, tasting like caramel but with the buttery texture of a Lima bean. What makes this plant magic is that when seeds are planted, it seems to summon bees to it. Bees will abandon hives to start building around the bean, or if that’s not convenient enough, the bugs actually uproot the plant itself and Carries it to the hive in an amazing show of teamwork

Silver bells: a droopy vine with silver tipped leaves. It grows a berry like vegetable that resembles a tomato, but with a blue grey skin and a deep purple flesh. The magic fruit entices one to eat it by “calling” its harvester with a tinkling bell noise. The vegetables when hitting each other sound like the light clinking of metal. The vegetable is rather tasteless save for a faint cabbage flavor. It’s very beneficial to bone growth though and is highly recommended that young growing children and the elderly eat some every week.

Ground cherries: a strange magical fruit tree that grows its fruit beneath the soil. The very tip of the small cherry sized fruits are visible peeking through the dirt when they’re ready for harvest. They taste like blue. Some college human students say it’s the closest they’ve ever gotten to the taste of blue Gatorade in ebott

Ebott-only livestock:

Greater turkey: like the name suggests, this is just a massive variety of turkey. The birds can reach the size of cows. Naturally they’re a breed made by the farm AUs. They’re slowly becoming more popular as a holiday food for larger families. Last gyftmas broke the record of greater turkeys slaughtered and sold in one season. Thankfully for the farmers, these birds were bred for temperament as well and are quite gentle and docile

Jimmy crickets: they were previously called roasting crickets, but one witty monster renamed his after Disney started streaming in ebott, and the rest copied him as the bugs became a popular food for kids. It’s a magical variety of cricket that was cultivated underground. They eat moss, and are high in iron, copper, and folate. They’re brightly colored, most normally a bright red. They taste a bit like bacon bits.

Struggle grubs: like the name suggests, this bug was cultivated to be cheap, year round and plentiful. It’s a comfort food for many underground monsters who lived through poverty before the crash. The grubs will eat anything hence why they were labelled as “poor food” as underground they were fed mainly trash. Nowadays farmers feed them much healthier foods and the grubs are much better quality.

Riding/battle boars: funny enough, this type of domesticated hog was only found in horrorfell and drakefell before the crash. Many think that there’s a special connection between the two AUs cause this isn’t the only thing they share. In drakefell they were known as riding boars and were used to pull carts and plows, for eating and dairy, and battle of course. In horrorfarm they were only war animals, used to sniff out enemies and ram through enemy lines. The boar is intelligent like a dog, easily trained, and has an amazing sense of smell. They’re still used as farm hand animals to help plow and de-bug fields. The females can be milked and the cheese made from that milk is very heavy and fatty. They taste like pork, but because of their sacredness to the drakefell monsters and humans, it’s considered a big dishonor to eat one that didn’t die of natural causes.

Lesser deer: a small goat sized deer only found in ebott, they were originally found in the nomads forest. They’re very passive creatures and easily domesticated. Many farms are beginning to add them to livestock because of the delicious soft meat on the animals, and their varied diets.

Rolland’s horned snail: a large cow sized snail bred by the Rolland family from farmswap. The snails on average are the size of draft horses and can weigh nearly a ton. They’re bred purely for their meat and the shells are also sold as decoration, or ground as a binding agent mixed into cement. The snails are fed mainly sawdust, dried grass, and weeds. It takes nearly 20 years for one to reach full size though.

Pearled salmon: a freshwater salmon native to ebott, it can be caught wild or bought from a hatchery. The scales look like pale pink and white pearls underwater, but turn grey when dry. The salmon has a white flesh and the taste is subtler than normal salmon.

Ice pips: this is a thin needle like magic fish that loves cold temperatures so much it creates its own chill. Any room the fish is kept in stays just cold enough to freeze the top of the water in its tank, but not so cold to freeze the whole tank. It is a farmers essential for any farmers who want a proper freezer basement or shed. Almost every farm monster owns a tank of them as it’s much cheaper to feed a few fish crickets every couple days than it is to pay electric for a large shed/room. Rancher and peaches have a tank of pips in their basement, and harpy has a whole massive storage shed cooled by her own tank.

Gremlins: small quail sized ugly little creatures that resemble a cross between a toad, gopher and pug, with wrinkled faces, round bodies and bumpy hairless skin. These little creatures are extremely easy to train and are used on farms to control bug pest levels. They are also slowly gaining popularity as a household pet because of their friendly natures. What makes this animal magic is its tongue which can stretch and shoot out nearly 12 feet at a time in pursuit of a big. Which is clearly magic as the tongue is only a few inches long when resting in the body, and when (gently) pulled by an outside force, it barely gets out of the mouth. A gremlin is edible as well, tasting like chicken by most reports, but farmers who raise them dislike eating the critters as they often can’t help but start viewing them as family.

Land shrimp: it’s literally a shrimp that survives on land. They’re fast breeders and must be kept indoors to prevent an outbreak. They’re fed a mixture of grain, oats, bone, and unwanted meat cuts. The magic shrimp will resort to cannibalism if not fed on time, so require dedication to raise. And yes, they taste like normal shrimp

Smithers basilisk: a long bodied lizard that’s roughly the size of a basset hound, the Smithers basilisk’s true origins are unknown, but have been a common livestock animal for generations among the Drake monsters and humans. The large lizards have a poison sack behind the eyes that are removed after they hatch for safety purposes. They’re raised for a number of reasons: their scaled hides make great leather, the eggs are large and females can lay year round if there’s a male in the pack, and they’re great ratters. So many farmers keep a few to help control the pests on their farm.

Jeweled scarabs: both an animal raised as livestock and a popular pet, these palm sized beetles have stunning shells in a beautiful glossy array of colors looking just like crystal. They’re raised primary for the shells which are harvested when the beetles die of old age. The shells are broken and polished to be used as jewelry, decoration, tile and even used in pottery and glazes. They have a short lifespan of just 2 years sadly, hence why they don’t beat out snails as the most popular pet. The bodies of the beetles are also ground and used as feed for other animals needing protein in their diets.

Roc birds: a poultry bird native to the bird AUs, this was a fat flightless bird that is accustomed to living on rocky cliffs. It has very strong talons and legs in order to climb and move around safely. And a huge oversized beak strong enough to break rocks. The birds are about the size of a duck and have grey speckled feathers. They were bred for their eggs and meat, the hens laying several a day. But they’re difficult to raise as they’re aggressive.

Wooly snails: these snails are about the size of a standard goose when fully grown, and the shells grow a thick fur that needs to be peeled off every few weeks to keep the snail comfortable and mobile. The pelts are then throughly washed and used for clothing, pillow filler, and all other kinds of things. The snails come in a variety of colors with white being the most common, but also a powder blue and lilac. They’re raised mostky by monsters at the top of ebotts mountain range as the snails need cool temperatures to be healthy

Dwarf rock bees: ebott’s special bee variety, the only bee known to be underground. The dwarf rock bee resembles a black fluffy bumblebee, but is so small it can barely cover Abraham Lincoln’s face on a penny. The bees will only create hives in stone structures (or around a honey bean plant) and hives can host millions of bees at a time. The tiny fluff balls are stingless and extremely prone to predators as they had very few underground. When alarmed, they make a shrill buzzing noise together, and copy a frequency that they know scares animals away. For most hives, that means turning their buzzing into a car alarm. Some enthusiasts of the bee keep them indoors in smaller controlled hives and have even trained the bees to copy songs that are repeated often around them. And of course they make honey

Alrighty! There are three ways one can make magical food!

1: it’s a learned magic to add intent to food. Every monster learns it as children. It’s just one of those things your parents are supposed to teach you, like driving or how to clean.

Intent affects the foods taste and sometimes even gives it mild healing properties. So someone making a batch of cookies with a lot of love and passion can make some hecking fine cookies. However there’s a limit. Pour too much passion (or any type of intent really) and you’ll burn the food. Even if you’re not using heat to cook.

This is why undyne regularly nukes her kitchen

2: plants can become magical after several generations of being exposed to magic. That’s why the underground was able to host so many plant varieties despite the lack of sunlight. This can’t really be controlled since it happens randomly. Any food cooked with the plants has magical properties as well

3: the farmtale monsters have perfected earth magic over the centuries. Any native born farmtale monster has the ability to bond to the land they own and produce much higher quality, quantity, and magical produce. This includes animals too. They become more docile, intelligent, and produce more. The magical skill of bonding to your land is seen as familial magic and can only be passed down through blood

And finally, some famous drinks and dishes only found in ebott!!!

Gauzeberry freeze: the expensive but delicious drink consists of milk, shaved ice, honey, blueberries, coconut and of course gauzeberries. It’s sold only in special occasions like national holidays. Otherwise the only way to get it is to make it at home, which is quite difficult due to the nature of gauzeberries. It does make one float a few inches off the ground for an hour after drinking

Fries and bits: mixed bugs, most commonly crickets, are cleaned and fried with potato wedges, and in fancier dishes, onion rings and fried artichoke hearts are added. It’s a greasy but delicious meal and many fried fast food places sell this dish

Boars honor stew: a dish coming from drakefell. When a drakes boar dies, whether from old age, an injury, or sickness, never intentionally slaughtered for food, their burial ritual for the animal is to stew it in a massive pot filled with potatoes, other root vegetables, blood root, boar berries, dragons breath and a load of mushrooms. The boar is carefully cleaned, and the blood used to fertilize the drakes, or communities crops. Then the animal is put in the pot whole and stewed for around four days before being passed around and eaten. It’s a dish meant to be shared, not bought. So to be offered some is a great honor

Roc on rocks: it requires a roc bird for the traditional version of the dish, but chicken will do too for a close substitute. The breast meat of a roc bird is thinly sliced and marinated in an orange citrus sauce for a few hours. Then traditionally a flat rock is heated up, and the thin slices are cooked on top, then laid on a bed of cabbage and thinly sliced carrots before being served. However pan frying is a safe at home substitute if one doesn’t have a big rock and outdoor campfire

Golden pearwood tea cake: goldenflowers and pearwood bark are dried and made into tea. The tea must be strained and left in the fridge to chill while the cake base is created. It’s preferred to use a nut flour like almond or hazelnut. The cake flour is then moistened with the tea, and a light honey glaze is added on top when it comes out of the oven

Cinder-spark: a popular energy drink brand made in ebott from cinderpetals. It comes in three flavors: jalapeño, spicy strawberry and electric orange. All flavors are spicy with electric orange being the mildest. Never drink more than two a day

Treasure chests: a shiny beautiful salad dish of heartyheads, leafy greens, beets, sea eggs, deaths pearl, and topped with cooked pearled salmon. It’s a beautiful colorful dish and a favorite at seafood restaurants along seashore. And it’s extremely nutritious

Snaproot pockets: like the name suggests, it’s a little baked pouch filled with puréed snaproot. It’s created with either mochi flour or cattail flour, the little flour pouch is filled with mashed or puréed snap root, and is topped with seeds like sesame after being baked. This dish can also be made with pumpkin and garwins gourds instead of snaproot.

Lions jello: made from boiled cattails, and infused with goldenflower tea, this is ebotts national desert. The cattails make an attractive milk white jello with a light airy taste, and the goldenflower adds flavor and speckles of gold inside. It’s a beautiful dessert and is a favorite of many of the royals

Snail pie: ebotts national dish: this is a pie filled with cubed snail meat, pearled onions, garlic, many spices to taste, and spinach. The pie is baked like a normal pot pie and is usually topped with seeds for better looks. Mini versions are sold at festivals and food trucks, and kids in public school get mini snail pies on Fridays for lunches.

Silver broth: made from boiled silver bells and bones, this broth is a popular soup base because of its mild taste, and is highly recommended that parents use it when cooking for their children as it promotes healthy bone, teeth and ecto growth. In winter months too, it’s sold alone as a savory drink with sliced dried mushrooms and spring onions as an alternative to sugary hot drinks

Wailing baby mash: it’s a terrible name but parents seem to think it’s funny. Mandrakes are mashed with other veggies (and often a bit of silver broth is added) to make a soft baby food safe for monsters and human babies old enough for solid food. It has a mild taste which is pleasant for kids. Many parents used mashed mandrakes in place of mashed potatoes well into their kids childhood as a healthier and cheaper alternative

Goths on toast: another terrible name, Asgore really sucks at naming things, and he’s to blame for this one as the creator asked him to endorse the dish. A delicious spread is made from the fruit of a spiderbloom, blackberries and dark or ground cherries. The fruit spread is spiced with a hint of cinnamon and nutmeg and spread on bread as a sweet morning breakfast. It’s often paired with fancy cheeses and is served as a dish to show off your class. No charcuterie board in ebott is complete without this spread

Pigment potion: twigs mixed with alcohol creates a magic drink that can change the color of one’s ecto, hair/fur and eyes. The more diluted the drink, the shorter the effect. And to control what color the drink becomes, it needs to be hand made with a certain color in mind. A drink of magic, intent and booze. Any sort of alcohol does fine so usually cheap wine is used. And in festivals, watered down versions are allowed to be sold to children as long as a parent is present

Gyftmas cookies: of course they have to be baked with sweet salt. These brown cookies are made with the sweet salt spice, molasses, plain flour and honey. They’re decorated of course and are part of a popular gyftmas tradition called the cookie trade. At parties, each family shows up with a plate of cookies, and they go around having to swap one of their cookies on the plate for one from another’s family. By the end of the party, they go home with a plate from multiple families.

Crabby patties: this name was popular way before SpongeBob was introduced to ebott. There was a fierce legal battle between Marcelo and Nickelodeon for him to keep the name of the popular dish sold at his grocery stores. He just barely won, and the name is only allowed to be used with free reign in ebott lol. Crabby patties are smoked crab apple thinly sliced and pickled, then placed on a slab of either cooked snail or cooked hamburger patty. The bun is traditionally wrapped cabbage leaves, but bread buns are more popular on the surface these days. Every hamburger place has a crabby patty burger on their menu.

Fae floss: pasta from boiled flossy sticks is topped with a thick brown sauce made from goats cheese, powder shrooms, and finely chopped herbs. Other mushrooms are added to the pasta and often bugs like grubs, chopped beetles or worms are added. If bugs aren’t your cup of tea, shredded chicken is fine instead

Mead of lady magic: this mead is flavored with pomegranate seeds and honey beans to make a rich mild drink. It was also used in rituals by the temple monsters before the crash, and is still considered a holy drink by them. Only made and drank on sacred days.

Sun therapy: this light sandwich is made with pickled Ferris weed flowers, salami and mozerella cheese. The sandwich is toasted and topped with more cheese. A delicious meal full of vitamin D

Tarotile cheesecake. A plain slice of cheesecake, colored a deep forest green by adding Tarotile to the cooking process. The cake tastes like a wonderful wild berry blend according to monsters, but is highly toxic to humans and mages. Any one who dares sell it to a human without signed consent can be arrested and held for trial on attempted bodily harm.

[exkernal]

Philosophy Class for Rock Bottom Demons: 2/3

Maybe coming to Earth wasn't such a great idea after all.

Michael's in that gaudy Arizona dive bar, but it's gaudy in an Eleanor-way, like Minion plushies and shrimp dispensaries. The light's too bright here, like a spotlight that won't stop following him. It's jarring, seeing Eleanor in that little red dress; he's so used to "Real Eleanor's" conservative garb.

"Look, surprisingly sexy bartender, I'ma tell it to you straight: it's my birthday and I want to make some bad decisions. Like baaaad. You know what I'm talkin' 'bout."

He doesn't.

"If it's not you, it's going to be my Uber driver. I've already hooked up with three Uber drivers. And I'm not saying that the last one was a budding serial killer or anything, but I am saying that I can't rule him out as not a budding serial killer either. So what's it going to be?"

"Um, what?" Michael says. He wonders if there's another glass for him to pretend to clean.

"Come on, man," Eleanor slides closer to him. Too close: there's no space between them anymore. Eleanor's finger curls around his white hair. "Do you want me or not?"

Well, okay then. Yes. Okay. This is...yes.

He kissed Eleanor before, one night under the Michael-made stars, the night when they were both desperate enough to willingly venture into the depths of hell (and that's not even a cheesy metaphor). It shouldn't shock him so much to feel her body against his, to feel her hands running through his hair and cupping his face. The sensation of her tongue in his mouth is still strange, but he's a fast learner. He can't recall why he was so adamantly against kissing before.

As it escalates, going faster than he can anticipate, he hears voices in his head. One that sounds like Janet reminds him that the Judge could check on them at any moment. One that sounds like Chidi at the height of his philosophy professor glory frets about the morality of his actions. Then there's Shawn's voice, telling him to ignore that four-eyed, Kant-loving dweeb.

He's a bit concerned about that last voice, though not enough to stop.

*****

"Okay, so it definitely wasn't a good idea to piss off the Judge, and I'm sorry for getting us trapped on Earth--"

"Michael," Janet interrupts. "It's fine. Let's go help the humans."

"Right," Michael says. His smile takes over his entire face. "Let's go."

*****

Michael's stuck here on Earth until the inevitable death of the universe (but no one likes spoilers). While the humans are alive, he'll do everything in his power to get them into the Good Place. After that...well, after that he'll still have Janet. They'll figure it out from there.

"I still look like me, right?" he asks Janet as the two of them hang out in their new journalism department headquarters. It's night now, the time when he and Janet, as two sleepless beings, can truly talk.

"What do you mean?" Janet says.

"My fingers don't look more, uh, tentacle-like, do they? I don't look more on fire than usual?"

She smiles knowingly. "You look the same as always, Michael. Your demonic appearance isn't slipping through."

"Oh good," he says. For a moment he was afraid that he'd live out his earthly existence as a Godzilla monster.

At night, he thinks about the point system. He keeps noticing all of the little ways that humans lose points. Littering. Sneezing into their hands then touching a railing. Listening to music in public without earbuds. Listening to country music, period. But then, he's also noticing the little acts of kindness: picking up someone else's litter; holding the door open; offering up a tissue and reassurance to a crying stranger at a bus stop.

Not for the first time, he wonders how the points are weighed. Why does bingeing trash TV and making rude comments cancel out someone's sincere if imperfect effort to change? Why don't they count up the million little ways a person's presence can bring out the best in someone else?

*****

This was a horrible decision. Why hadn't he listened to Janet when she tried to warn him? Why did he always ruin everything?

"Michael," Janet says softly. "Please talk to me."

"It's all my fault," he says hollowly. "I should've listened to you. I shouldn't have meddled."

"It is true that everyone should listen to me because I'm a being who literally knows everything," Janet says, but the joke doesn't land with Michael, not right now. "The past is the past. Beating yourself up won't change it."

"All I wanted was to get them into the Good Place," he says. He should be crying, like he did on the platform, but for some reason he can't feel anything. Just numbness, like he's lost his link to his corporeal body. "Now, because of me, they will definitely go to the Bad--"

His voice cracks. Oh, there it is: those tricky, pesky emotions.

Janet's arm slinks around his shoulders. He lets himself sink into her surprisingly warm embrace.

"I'm no expert," she says, "but I think this is just another part of being human; accepting that not everything will go your way."

He supposes she's right.

"Come on," she says. "Let's try some authentic Earth froyo."

*****

"What's the big deal, Eleanor? She found a man who makes her happy. And, if you ask me, she made a good choice. Do you know how awesome it is to talk architecture with someone who actually knows what they're talking about? Someone who doesn't just want to add more spider volcanoes and blood rivers? It's so refreshing! Such a creative challenge! Such a--"

"Michael!" Eleanor snaps, arms crossed over her chest. "Focus, dude!"

"Oh, uh, sorry, got a little sidetracked," he smiles sheepishly.

"Look, dude, Dave might be your BFF now, but women like my mom don't go for guys like him without an ulterior motive."

"Why not?" Michael asks, confused.

"Puh-lease. The Donna Shellstrops of the world are trashy but in a hot way, with bods that just won't quit even after all of the questionable things they've put them through. Dave's a dork with glasses and a boner for architecture--no offense."

Offense very much taken. He doesn't know why he's so affronted by Eleanor's skepticism, but he is, deeply. Maybe he's offended on behalf of his new friend. Yeah, that's definitely the reason.

And what's so bad about glasses, anyway? He happens to think they make a person look refined.

*****

"Those are my memories," Eleanor says. "I want them back."

But here's the thing: Eleanor doesn't know Michael this go around, not really. She knows Michael the Benevolent Being, Michael the Slightly Eccentric Force for Good. The Michael who may have done some questionable things in the past, but is now her biggest supporter.

She doesn't know Michael the Demon, who begged for help while calling her a disgusting little cockroach. The Michael who gleefully tortured her, then cackled in her face when she found out. She doesn't know Michael the Manipulator, the Michael who tortured Chidi for petty fun, the Michael of ill-advised hookups.

That Michael is better off forgotten.

That's the reason why he doesn't want to show her. Well, the main reason. He's also sick of all the schmoopsy lovey Chidi moments, yuck. Don't get him wrong, he knows Chidi is good for Eleanor. He helps her become a better person, and if nothing else, he wants her to be her best self. But does he really need that love fest paraded around in front of him?

Once she's finished, he starts babbling. She cuts him off.

"I'm not mad at you. I can't be mad at a demon for being evil."

Well. He's not sure how to feel about that. He should be relieved that she's not mad, but he's not. She expects demons to be evil? Does Eleanor expect him to be evil?

Of course, she starts ranting about how super intelligent tarantula squids control everything, so he doesn't have time to dwell on it.

*****

Erasing Chidi's memory is absolutely the right decision; he knows because Chidi, the czar of moral philosophy, says so. But as he learned at his first annoying philosophy class, the right thing is often as painful as any torture he could dream up.

It was also right to show Chidi and Eleanor their joint memories, as painful as that is. They deserve this. He stays back to give them privacy, but he doesn't leave completely, because it's better to get the memory wipe over with.

Distance doesn't matter much to demons, anyway. He can still see them cry and comfort each other. His chest feels tight and painful, like it's burning. Wait, is is? Did his human outfit slip somehow? But no, he's still regular Michael. His chest just aches unbearably because he can't stand watching Chidi and Eleanor hurt.

Especially Eleanor.

*****

When Eleanor asks if his freak out was fake in her you-sly-dog voice, he smiles tightly, shuffles his feet, and agrees.

Lying is probably the right decision.

*****

He has no proof, but he's pretty sure that pink pastel wallpaper was invented in the Bad Place. It certainly feels like torture, staring at the walls of Mindy's bedroom. He could always leave, he supposes, but he'd rather face Derek's creepy sex toys than the humans right now.

So of course that's the moment that Eleanor walks through the door.

"Hey," she says, playing with the hem of her blue shirt. He's grown rather fond of her impeccable Fake Architect wardrobe. One of his favorite parts of the experiment is coordinating outfits with her.

"Hey," he says thickly, barely looking up.

"Can I sit down?"

"Sure."

The mattress dips with her weight.

"Michael, I want you to know that I never stopped trusting you, I just...wasn't sure how good an actor Vicki is."

"She sucks," Michael says. "My Australian accent's so much better."

He thinks Eleanor's smiling.

"Right. Still, I should've known. Sorry."

He shrugs. "I shouldn't have lied. I'm sorry too."

"Look at us, two pathetic chumps apologizing and shirt."

"Heh."

"Hey, bud?" Eleanor says. "What's on your mind?"

"Nothing," he says quickly.

Eleanor is surprisingly gentle when she says, "I thought we said no more lying."

That startles him enough to look up.

"I--" he starts. He bunches his pant legs in his fists. "It's--I can't explain it."

"It's about the fire squid thing, isn't it?"

"No!" he shouts. "No, it's...okay," he admits, shoulders sagging, "it's about the fire squid thing."

"Michael, nothing's changed," she says, putting a hand on his shoulder. "We still love you the same. Actually, scratch that, Jason probably loves you more now. Seriously, dude, you're gonna have to strip for him if you ever want him to shut up."

Michael snorts despite himself.

"I know I'm probably being stupid--"

"You are definitely being stupid," she cuts him off. "Knock it off. We can only afford one Jason Mendoza in this group."

"Yeah, okay. It's just.. hard, sometimes, being the only demon."

"Do you want us to keep gloopy Glenn?"

"No, Glenn sucks. Okay, maybe that's just Shawn's millennia of bullying talking. What I mean is, I don't always know my place. I tortured you guys, I manipulated you. and it's--I'm not that person anymore, but at the same time, part of me sort of is. I don't know if I'm explaining it right."

"I think I get it," Eleanor says, putting her hand in his. "I've changed so much that sometimes I want to strangle my old self. But at the same time, I can't completely move away from that hot Arizona dumpster fire, because she helped make me who I am today."

"Yes, exactly," he nods. "When I'm with you humans and Janet, I finally feel like I belong. Sometimes I forget that I'm really a, a fire squid, and convince myself that this dashingly good looking body is the real deal. So when I'm confronted with the truth--when my friends found out the truth--"

"But it's not the truth," Eleanor says. "You are who you chose to be; that's the real you. Your friends love you for you, whether you want to be a fire squid or dapper silver fox."

There's that warm chest feeling again, only it's not painful this time.

"You were always my favorite," he tells Eleanor. He's not sure why he's telling her, but it feels right. "I love all of you, but if I had to pick a favorite human, it's you."

"Thanks, man," she says. "You're my favorite demon."

"Low bar," he mutters, and they both laugh.

He looks at Eleanor. He really looks at her.

"Do you want your memories back?" he asks.

She looks at him sharply. "You can do that? What about Janet's machine thingy?"

"I don't need it in the afterlife," he says, standing up in excitement. This is a risky decision, but it's the right one. She deserves to know all of it, and all of him. "Do you want them or not?"

"Here yeah I do. Fork it, let's do it."

He snaps his fingers.

It only takes a fraction of a second, but he can see them all dancing in Eleanor's blue-green eyes.

"Holy forking shirt!" she says. "Wow. Just wow."

Her eyes find his.

"So we have a bit of a complex relationship, huh?"

"What do you mean?" he asks. Why is he suddenly so twitchy?

"I mean, I know I'm a total hottie and everything, but I hooked up with everybody in the afterlife. Chidi, Tahani, you."

"Oh," Michael says. "That."

Suddenly, the pile of gross sex toys is the most fascinating thing in the room.

"Yes, that," Eleanor stands up, forcing his attention back to her. "Do you want to talk about it?"

"Um," he says. "Sorry?"

"Don't be sorry, doofus," she says, swatting his shoulder. "I was the driving force both times. I can see why I'm your favorite now, unless you swap spit with other humans I don't know about."

"First of all, gross. That's gross. Second of all, no."

"Seriously, though, do you want to talk about it? Your feelings, I mean."

He does not. He'd rather get zapped into ooze like poor stupid Glenn or try out that demon strip tease (well, not really). But he's no longer the person who pouts and runs people over with trolleys to avoid his feelings.

So here goes nothing.

"I'm still not great with human feelings. I only just learned why you should never lie to your friends--sorry again. All I can really say is that I care about you. You make me want to be my best self."

Eleanor looks at him. He can't read her face.

"You know I'm in love with Chidi, right?" she says. He knows; he doesn't need her to say. "But you're like the best friend I've ever had. Like ever. I don't know if soulmates are real, but if they are, you're my best friend soulmate. I hope that's good enough."

"Oh, Eleanor," he says. His throat feels tight. "Of course that's enough."

"C'mere, you big softie," she says, pulling him into a tight embrace. He thinks hugs are one of his favorite human things. It's definitely up there, just ahead of paper clips.

She lets go. "Okay, now go kick Shawn's ash."

Oh, he definitely will.

[goddessofthundathighs]

I’ll Take Yo Man

A little college Hennessy and Erik foolishness concocted by @hearteyes-for-killmonger & myself. Based on the following prompt:

Friday. The day Hennessy had been looking forward to the whole week. Erik would be home from his most recent deployment the next day and she needed to prepare for his return. She went and got her hair done, opting for a silk press to her usually springy curls. She followed that up with a well deserved pedicure and a full-set of stiletto dick grabbers, both in his favorite color on her: sunflower yellow. She was now perusing the shelves of MAC, looking to restock her dwindling supply of Snob and Saint Germain lippies and her prep + prime lip primer. The freshly cleaned diamonds in the Cuban link necklace Erik gifted her twinkled under the light of the store, attracting the attention of the young woman working. She was about 5’9, 150 pounds wet with what looked to be a 24-inch body wave weave with a lifting frontal and lipstick that clashed with her undertones. Cute, but not Hennessy. She looked Henny up and down with familiarity before her eyes finally landed on the letter E tattoo that rested on her collarbone.

“Oh, you must be the new freak of the week?”

“Excuse me?” Hennessy asked with a raised eyebrow. Erik was popular, so it was no surprise that the whole state of Massachusetts knew that he was officially off the market.

“I know that Cuban, he gave me one like it when we were fucking around. Erik?”

“Who are you?” The name tag on her chest read Brittani, but it should’ve said Bold Bitch, seeing as how she was questioning Henny like she was Erik’s mother.

“I’m Brittani. Erik and I fucked around on the regular up until about a year ago.”

Hennessy smiled as Brittani spoke, remembering the day that he stumbled on her doorstep.

"And you still on him? Baby, move on." This caused Brittani to give her the most menacing look.

“Funny, you’re bigger than his usual type.”

Oh, you one of them bitches. Salty as the everlasting fuck that a thicc bitch took the nigga you wanted.

“Any particular reason why you’re divulging this information? I’m just tryna buy some lipstick not hear your dating history.”

Brittani smirked, snatching the items from Hennessy’s hands and ringing them up aggressively.

"History tends to repeat itself. I could take your man. Easily! Look at me and look at you.”

Hennessy laughed loudly then, completely disregarding the Great Value Cyn Santana. Having been officially dating the soon-to-be King of Wakanda for a year now, she was used to slimmer, Instagram-esque women feeling loose at the lips when it came to her boyfriend. At face value, Erik was the total package. He was incredibly smart, handsome, and his sex could convert even the most devout nun. But the real Erik, the fragile lost boy who had discovered his father’s lifeless body when he was only a young boy, that was a completely different story. The real Erik was moody, mean, and when he was in Killmonger-mode, a vengeful shell of a man that cared about nobody else’s feelings but his own. It had taken some time, but Hennessy had skillfully and meticulously broken down some of the rougher areas of his psyche and had learned things about him that no one else would dream of knowing. In him, she'd found a kindred spirit. A twin flame. They had bonded over their love for marijuana and their need to escape the realities of their tragic childhoods. She'd seen him at his weakest, his ugliest, and his most tragic. They'd butt heads and found homeostasis more times in a month than most couples even saw each other. She knew no one else could handle the man she called hers and she’d be lying if she said the idea of someone trying was not comical.

“I'll tell you what. You can have him, but I guarantee after 24 hours you’ll give him back.”

“Shiiid. I know what that dick is like and I swore that if I ever got it again, I’d never let him go.”

Hennessy laughed harder as the young woman slid the bag of purchased items across the counter.

“I’ll give you 24 hours. Any longer and you're stuck with him.”

“Deal.”

-------------------------------------------

“You really out here tryna pimp a nigga, huh?” Erik asked from his place between Hennessy's legs. After having successfully broken her back on every surface of their shared apartment since he stepped foot in the door the previous day, Erik was now lazily resting on Hennessy’s belly while she massaged through his dreads. He had missed the way her plush body melted into his, much like the memory foam mattress they were currently lounging on. He loved the way their bodies fit together, like Bast had created her just for him. She was his personal Sour Patch kid, sweet and sour depending on her mood, but always soft.

“It’s only pimping if we're getting paid. Lil’ Mama said she could take you from me, so I told her she could have you. You and I both know you’ll be back.”

“You damn right. You’re my favorite brown liquor and plus, I can’t leave my Creole lady for too long. What you gonna do while I’m gone?”

Um, party? She thought to herself.

“Relax,” she said instead. Though there were experiments that needed to be done, she was going to use the day for some much needed self-care. Her hair had long since sweated out from its silky state, so she planned to wash and twist it, exfoliate and shave, and binge watch all the shows she’d missed during the week.

“You relaxed while I was gone, ma,” he pouted as he snuggled closer to her.

“No, I worked while you were gone. You know I have to keep busy so I don’t miss ya fat head ass so much.”

“You love my fat head though, boffum,” he teased as he ran his fingertips up her thighs.

“You’re disgusting,” she sneered.

“Filthy,” he called back, dipping his fingers between her thighs, drawing a soft mewl from her.

“Again?” she pouted.

“I missed my baby,” he growled before his tongue met her folds.

Here we go again.

-----------------------------------------

Erik watched Brittani's back, unimpressed by her lack of food and general unpreparedness. Hadn't she heard that the way to a man's heart was through his stomach? She sat a bowl in front of him and stuck a spoon in it like she was done.

“Bruh. What the fuck is this? I asked for shrimp and grits, not oatmeal,” Killmonger fussed from his seat at Brittani’s counter. He had been in one of his moods ever since he came over, mentally noting to curse his girlfriend out for subjecting him to such torture, and now she was trying to kill him. Immediately he began to remember why he cut Brittani off in the first place. She was cute, but that was all she had going for herself. She couldn’t cook, she wouldn’t clean, and she was always in his business and trying to go through his phone. If she wasn’t trying to force herself onto his dick then she was whining about wanting him to take her shopping and show her off, though she wasn’t much of a trophy. She couldn't even keep her wig under control. He could see the screen door material sitting on top of her forehead. Henny always put makeup on hers. He could see her in the mirror now, doing that goofy ass dance she did whenever she got a new wig, patting and parting to make sure it looked good. He looked down at his watch. 16 more hours to go. This was finna be a long day.

“That is shrimp and grits, babe. I followed the recipe and everything.” Hennessy didn’t need a recipe.

“My name is Erik,” he reminded her as he tried to lift the spoon from the bowl. “Call me babe again and I’ll slit ya throat,” he threatened, mostly serious. “Why the grits so thick? Did you devein the shrimp? Is this a shell?!” His appetite quickly diminished when he spotted a creature the size of his thumb crawl across the stovetop.

“SHIT…. I’m going to the gym,” he snarled dusting himself, suddenly paranoid.

You love me especially gentle every time // You keep me on my feet happily excited // By your cologne, your hands, your smile, your intelligence // You woo me, you court me, you tease me, you please me // You school me, give me some things to think about // Ignite me, you invite me, you co-write me, you love me, you like me // You incite me to chorus, ooh

Back at their apartment, Henny was soaking in a vanilla lavender bath while her curls deep conditioned under her large pink bonnet. Jill Scott serenaded her while the warm water soothed her aching muscles, an indication of the previous night’s activities. Her music was interrupted by her ringtone.

“Miss me already, Daddy?” she teased, putting the phone on speaker so she could finish her bath.

“This bitch got bugs bigger than me crawling around her shit. Them bitches benching 350. I’m not sleeping there tonight for them niggas to jump me in my sleep.. and I’ma beat ya ass when I get home,” he fussed, still dusting himself occasionally as he drove.

“Aww, baby it can’t be that bad,” Hennessy tried.

“She needed a recipe for shrimp and grits. Who the fuck needs a recipe for shrimp and grits?! It’s in the fuckin’ title! Damn shrimp still had shells on ‘em, the grits was hard as a fuckin’ brick… it was just a mess. Then Craig the Cockroach or whatever the fuck it was came crawling across the stove like he was lookin’ for a plate too. I had to go.”

Hennessy was a giggling mess as Erik explained his morning ordeal.

“Didn’t y’all use to fuck around? You ain’t know she had roaches?”

“I used to fuck that bitch in her driveway cuz she lived with her mama. I had no idea what the inside of that place looked like.”

“You was a dirty dick ass nigga, huh? Just sticking it in anything warm.”

“First of all, fuck you. Second of all, I’m aware of the error of my past judgement, but this is NOT the time to be making jokes. I’m distraught and you laughing. If I die in there, it’s your fault.”

“I mean, according to ya military paperwork I’m ya wife, so I’ll get a nice check.”

“Wooooooow, it really be ya own people. Just for that I’m going in ya ass with no lube tomorrow.”

“Wait, I take it back. I’m sorry. If you wanna come back sooner, handle her. Make it so she knows you're mine or help her move on. One or the other.”

“BET.” With that, the line went dead and Hennessy already knew which option he chose. She had basically given Killmonger permission to hurt this young lady’s feelings, and boy did he intend to do just that.

-----------------------------------------

Hennessy was mid happy baby pose when her phone rang again, this time with an unfamiliar number. She cleared her throat and pulled out the French, just in case it was a bill collector or one of Erik’s more shady acquaintances.

“Bonjour, Aurélie.” She was met with the sound of soft sniffles, followed by her boyfriend’s voice roaring in the background.

“The fuck you crying for? You knew what that shit looked like when you woke up this morning. Didn’t even try to run a brush through it. That ain’t what Beyoncé meant when she said she woke up like this.”

“Please come get this nigga,” Brittani said between sniffles. She had had it. Ever since Erik had returned from the gym he had been tearing into her. Hennessy knew it would happen and she almost felt bad for releasing the beast. Almost.

"I would’ve kissed you good morning just to be nice but I went through your bathroom cabinets and you ain't got no mouthwash. Your toothbrush look like it was originally owned by George Washington and your breath smells like halitosis personified. And don’t get me started on Craig the Cockroach. That nigga probably twerked his ass all over your lips and your tongue the way you were snoring. Why you sleep with your mouth open when you got roaches?”

“That’s actually a valid question. That can’t be healthy,” Henny finally spoke up.

“That nigga Craig pay rent or is he like Bruhman from the fif flo? This his house, huh? You just his pet human.”

“Nigga!” Hennessy exclaimed through the phone. She had been successful at keeping her laughs at bay, but was done when he called her the roach’s pet human.

“I can’t do this anymore, you can have him back.”

“It’s only been 9 hours, sis. I thought you said you’d never let that dick go.”

"So now you don't wanna be with me because I'm telling yo triflin’ ass the truth? And who said she was getting dick?! Nah, you ain’t about to put no voodoo curses on me for sticking my dick in the Men In Black bug. I try to bust a nut and my shit just fall off. Hell nah.”

“Just get ya shit and go, nigga. Shamu can have you.” Time seemed to stop once those words left her lips. Even Craig the Cockroach disappeared. It was one thing to disrespect him, but his woman? All bets were off when it came to her and Brittani was about to learn this the hard way. With deadly stealth Erik zipped from across the room to right in front of her face. He wiggled the phone from Brittani’s grasp and ended the call before putting his face as close to hers as his nostrils would allow.

"You fix them crusty lips to call my woman Shamu one more time.. and I'll throw you in the ocean with Bruhman chained to your ankle like a weight." Brittani remained silent, only nodding her head fervently when he was done.

"Nah, you know what? That's not good enough. Call my girl back. Yeah, call her."

“Yeeesss?” Hennessy sang from the other end of the phone.

"The bit-, I mean Brittani got something to say to you. Go 'head."

Brittani hesitated, Erik's eyes giving her the option to cooperate or face consequences. He'd taken pictures of her dirty stove capturing a roach on the move and was threatening to post it on a MAC forum along with a short video of her asleep with a roach on her forehead. She decided it would be best for her to cooperate and cut her losses.

"Hi, Hennessy. I'm sorry for what I said to you and you were right, I couldn't handle him. I guess..," she wavered briefly, "I guess you're a better woman than me all-around. I could never. I see that now."

Erik cleared his throat quietly.

"Oh, a-and you're very beautiful, very statuesque and curvaceous. I wish I looked like you--"

“You don’t have to lie, now, sweetheart. You don’t wish you looked like me, you’re only saying that because you’re afraid of what he’ll do to you if I give the word. However, let this be a lesson to you. Just because you think you’re better than someone, that may not always be the case. Even if this little experiment had been his own choice, he’d still come back to me because he knows that no woman will ever treat him the way that I do. I’m one in a million and he’d be stupid to let me go.”

"So I can come home now?"

“Of course you can, Daddy. I got homemade crab cakes and lobster man n cheese waiting for you as well as two freshly pearled blunts of some new shit. I even felt generous and made a bananas foster cheesecake.” Erik’s mouth watered when she mentioned the dessert he fell in love with when they visited her parents the previous summer.

"A nigga need a bath, a nap, and a backrub. I ain't get no sleep. I had one eye open all night."

“You can have whatever you like, baby. My schedule is clear for the next week.”

“Shiiiit, I’m on my way.. And be naked when I get there.”

Horny ass nigga.

"Take notes," he said to Brittani as he hung up. “And tell my nigga Craig he can have them clothes. I ain’t tryna bring none of y’all kids home.”

TAGS: @panthergoddessbast @amethyst1993 @vikkidc @blackpantherismyish @youreadthatright @mareethequeen @princessstevens @bartierbakarimobisson @madamslayyy @nickidub718 @chaneajoyyy @blowmymbackout @muse-of-mbaku @killmongersgurl @thehomierobbstark @forbeautyandlife @wakanda-inspired @thadelightfulone @purple-apricots @trevantesbrat

[dragonkingofthestars-recove-blog]

So if by "rat" you mean 'small generalist omnivore that is heavily R selective" then there are a few options. With a lack of mammal there are only four major category to take this niche: Birds, Insects, Reptiles, amphibians, or some rapid evolved sea creature. A bird might be some kind of flightless sparrow that took notes from the Kewi after major land predators went extinct and became flightless. An insect would probably be a cockroach or some kind of beetle. A reptile would be some kind of skink, but Reptiles are realtivly rarely omnivores so I would consider them unlikely, amphibians the same but add in the water dependency. Sea creatures would likely be some kind of small athropod like a shrimp but a type of sea slug or basal (non sentient) octopus are also possible.

Frankly I think Rats are damn near bullet proof in any mass extinction but splatoon has a 'no mammal' rule' so those are the options.

what animal do you think would be the splatoon equivalent to a rat.ive been trying to think of what animal would fill that niche but i cant!!

hard to say, i've kind of defaulted to shrimp for this for some reason. they seem like they would skitter. Horseshoe crabs appearance-wise but they don't seem like something that would be that abundant.

There was a weird rat-fish thing on a flier at crableg capital that i've been scratching my head about ever since i saw it but i haven't posted pictures of the stage yet so i don't have it on hand

[ahumanexperiencemoment]

“I talk to the kids about bees and tell them about cides. Anything that’s a cide means kill. Anything that means kill is not good. Pesticide, herbicide… we don’t need it. We need to stop it and that’s the most important thing because if we don’t, we not gonna be here....”

 What got you involved in beekeeping?

I will never forget stepping on a bee when I was three years old. I stepped on em... I don’t know, I am t three years old, what I know? I stepped on a bee and got stung. Ever since then, I’ve been fascinated with bugs. And then after hurricane Katrina, well, before Hurricane Katrina, I was helping my friend Adrian with bees. He lived over by the Mississippi river bridge, right up from Marti Gras Boulevard. So, I was helping him with the bees before the storm. After the storm, he got robbed three times in less than a month and his wife says, “Babe, we got to go, I can’t stay, I feel so violated in my own home.” So, they found property across the lake and they moved across the lake and before they moved across the lake, he gave me three splits. Which is, you rob a queen cell from a hive, and you put it in with a couple of frames of… maybe a frame of brood and a frame of honey and you hope for the best. He gave me three, two died over the winter, they didn’t make it, but one did and that was it. I got started from there.

When was this?

After Katrina, right about 2006, I started with the bees and then three years later, I am out here at the market and I have been out here ever since. So that’s 2009 or 2010, I been here. Nine or ten years I have been here.

So, you said that you started off with one that survived, what do you have now?

Fifty. So, I’m busy, I make all of this. I make the soup, I make the salve, I make the lotion, I make the sealer, I make everything. I gather the pollen, the honey and then I got sourwood, and I got orange blossom and those come from monofloro…, so I bring the bees to an organic citrus farm in Georgia. Then I got a friend and we do the sourwood in the foothills of the Smokies and when the bees are finished in Georgia, I bring them up to him and he works the bees on the sourwood. And then he says hey, it’s ready so I give him some money and then I got get the bees and bring them back south and I let them winter down in the organic citrus farm area. They take off the wildflower if there is any in the springtime and put empty frames on them. I get there, sometimes they’ve harvested, sometimes they haven’t but usually normally wait till they have done it because sometimes, I don’t usually have a whole lot of time because that’s my busy time of year, the springtime cause I do conventions. That’s the other job that pays the taxes and the insurance and all of that stuff.

 The wonderful thing about the bees that it has brought to my life is being able to help people and be able to help somebody with something that they can’t get help for anyplace else. I saved my cousin’s life with propolis tincture and propolis pills. He had pseudomonas and he was in a hospital in North Oak’s Hospital. Six and half months, they couldn’t get his wound closed because the hardware that they put in his back was infected with pseudomonas and told them to take out the hardware and they said they can’t take out the hardware until the wound closes but the infection is not going to go away until you take out the hardware. So, I called him, cause his parents, you know just don’t get along, cause I stand up for and I’ll tell a doctor that he is an idiot as quick as look at him. I have no problem with that. Cause they aren’t as smart as I am sometimes. I’m not saying I am the smartest person in the world but, you know, if you only know what they taught you in those books and what they pumpin through the pharmaceuticals, then you don’t know a whole lot. So, anyway, I went to the hospital, found out that he had pseudomonas. I asked him what he has. So, I took this with me (holding a bottle of tincture) and some pills and we did a little aromatherapy on him to life up his spirits, then I dumped the alcohol based tincture in his back and he is biting the pillow and screaming like I just shot him. Make a long story a wound that a hospital couldn’t get closed in six and a half months was closed in a week.

Wow, that’s incredible.

Right? And I am not lying, I am not trying to sit here and tell you this. I am not going to park the Lamborghini in a six-car garage selling propolis for twenty dollars for half a ounce. It’s just not going to happen. But I am not interested in making money, I am interested in educating people about what needs to be done. And what needs to be done is that we need turbines in the Mississippi river instead of all these fossil fuels that we are using and the nuclear power because what are you doing to do with the waste from that? How about putting it in the backyards of everybody who is benefiting from it, like all of the shareholders? Those people? Give it to them. The share that they have, that’s the amount that they get when the rods are spent. Why not? It makes the most sense. But it’s all at our expense.

So, if you could go back to your eighteen-year-old self or another eighteen-year-old, what would….

I do, I talk to the kids about bees and tell them about cides. Anything that’s a cide means kill. Anything that means kill is not good. Pesticide, herbicide… we don’t need it. We need to stop it and that’s the most important thing because if we don’t, we not gonna be here. Do you know… I am not sure if it’s half a kilo but that’s a pound point one, right? Five hundred grams of glyphosate which is the main ingredient in Round Up has been used on every acre of cultivated land in the world. It is the most widely used chemical on the planet and being used by the megaton every year. Bayer owns Monsanto, Monsanto and Bayer are the largest producer of glyphosate on the planet, yet they say they care for bees. They care for bees as about as much as I care for cockroaches. They say they care for bees, but they just don’t tell you how they care for bees and they could care less. Because if you are producing glyphosate and the neonicotinoids and the nicotinoids, a synthetic form of nicotine that’s toxic to insects, it’s neurological toxin to them. So, when the bee uptakes anything from the plants that have been treated with, the plant concentrates these pesticides or herbicides in the nectar, in the pollen and that’s what the bee wants. So, when the bee takes it in, it can’t find its way back home. So that’s how you have seized colony collapse. And they are saying that’s not true. Well… yeah… okay… but we never had this problem before we have glyphosate and before we had neonics. We might have had some mites, but they could handle the mites because they had a strong immune system but the chemicals that they are giving the bees are weakening their immune systems. So, now they can’t handle the poor immune system and the chemicals and the mites, so they blame it on the varroa (mites) but it’s not the varroa, it’s the chemicals… and that’s my story and I am sticking to it. Because it’s true. How about let’s put some toxic stuff in your water and you gotta drink this stuff, because that’s the only water that’s available to you and it makes your immune system bad. Let’s send you to the hospital. What’s gonna happen? You are gonna get deathly ill because you can’t fight the germs that’s in a hospital. You’re gonna get MRSA or pseudomonas or whatever else is traveling around in the air system cause they really don’t clean that. You could be in the same room and the guy next to you has got pneumonia talking and hacking and you are in there… you are gonna get it cause your immune system is compromised. Well, that’s what they are doing to the bees. It’s not like we don’t have other alternatives. They are just turning a blind eye to it. Nobody wants to hear about biodynamics and health organics. Biodynamics… ya’ll go look that up. Biodynamics, the fruit is larger, it lasts longer, and you get more from the acreage than you do by commercial, chemically fit fed plants and GMOs (genetically modified organism) and all stuff like that.  I’m not saying GMOs are all bad. It’s bad that they treat them with the glyphosate. They systemically seed coat it and that’s when the glyphosate concentrates in the nectar and in the pollen. If they didn’t systemically seed coat it, it would be alright but then they couldn’t spray it with round up and the plants would live. They are genetically designed to resist the glyphosate and that’s why they can seed coat it with it. And it can concentrate in the nectar and it doesn’t bother it (the plant). But if you don’t think that’s not going to hurt us in the long run, you got another thing coming. Every commercial on television is, oh, try this medicine. Ask your doctor about this. Then the next commercial that comes on is “Do you have Mesothelioma? Have you been exposed to asbestos?” Okay, well that’s a chemical that something we were using in housing and in brakes and everything twenty-five, thirty, fifty years ago. Or what about the other, the mesh that they put into your stomach? Or the medicine that you took that caused lymphoma? Or whatever, because one commercial is about the lawyer that’s suing the drug companies and the other is about get this from the drug company. It’s crazy. I mean, I am talking to doctors and stuff and they don’t even know about this (pointing to her tinctures and salves). The doctors don’t know about ichthammol, do you know what ichthammol is? Drawing salve, black salve?

I’ve heard of it.

Yeah, you use to could get it at every drug store in the world. You can’t hardly find it anymore. You can find it at the feed stores. It’s drawing salve. Like if you get a bruise? My grandma use to put it on us to draw that bruise out, like that. We used to put I on our hands when we would catch shrimp. You go to pick the shrimp and you put them in the scale to weigh them out and you get the little tips in your fingers and you can’t grab them to pull it out cause it has barbs on it. And the little cuticle, like cuticle material, you can’t pull it out, it breaks. But if you put the black salve on it, slather it on it, it would back out. You can use it on horses when the horses run in briars and stuff. They would put it on to draw the things out. You can still buy it at the feed store. If you ask a doctor what it is, he doesn’t know. Most of them have no idea.

I got run over by a car in 1990, I had a bruise on my leg that went from here (pointing to her hip) to here (pointing to her knee). The doctor said, that ain’t going away. I said, pfftt.. makes you an idiot. So I says, I will be back. I gotta come back and see you anyway. I said the bruise is going to be looking good by then. I went back six weeks later, and I slathered my leg with ichthammol and I’d sleep with it like wrapped around my leg like a diaper.  He couldn’t believe it (bruise was gone). I was like, ya’ll don’t know everything. You are not even trying. Because one way is not the only way. When western medicine meets eastern medicine and you put the two together, we’re gonna have something. But when the left hand don’t know what the right hand is doing, we still stuck.

Gina Lanier

Gretna, Louisiana. 2019.

[emmagreen1220-blog]

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Arthropod

Arthropods Definition

An “arthropod” is an invertebrate animal that has an exoskeleton, a segmented body, and jointed appendages. The following families of organisms are all examples of arthropods:

Insects such as ants, dragonflies, and bees

Arachnids such as spiders and scorpions

Myriapods (a term which means “many feet”) such as centipedes and milipedes

Crustaceans such as crabs, lobsters, and shrimp

It may help to remember that the term “arthropod” comes from the Greek words for “jointed foot.” If the organism has an exoskeleton with joints between its feet and its body, it is probably an arthropod!

Arthropods are a lineage of life that developed skeletons on the outside – their hard shells, made of a material called “chitin” – instead of on the inside for structural support.

Arthropods’ bodies also have other important differences from those of vertebrates like ourselves – their organ systems are simpler and less efficient, which limits the size arthropods can attain.

An ant the size of a human, for example, would not be able to pump oxygen through its blood to feed all its tissues, since the arthropod circulatory system is simpler and less efficient than a humans’.

All arthropods are thought to have evolved from a single common ancestor, though scientists are not sure what this common ancestor looked like, or exactly when it lived.

Arthropod Characteristics

Characteristics shared by all arthropods include:

Exoskeletons made of chitin

Highly developed sense organs

Jointed limbs (the limbs must be jointed like the joints in a suit of armor, since the exoskeleton is rigid and cannot bend to allow movement)

Segmented bodies

Ventral nervous system. “Ventral” means “in front,” so this means that arthropods’ nervous systems run along the front of their bodies, near their stomachs, instead of along their backs like the spinal cords of animals.

Bilateral symmetry. This means that the left and right sides of an arthropod are the same – it will have the same number and arrangement of legs, eyes, etc. on the right side of its body as on the left.

Types of Arthropods

Trilobites

Trilobites were an ancient family of marine arthropods that went extinct during the Permian-Triassic extinction event. Today, they are known to us mostly through fossils like the one below.

They lived on the ocean floor and occupied ecological niches similar to those occupied by crustaceans today.

Asaphus platyurus

Chelicerates

Chelicerata are a branch of the arthropod family tree that, at first glance, may not appear related to each other.

This family includes arachnids (such as spiders and scorpions), sea spiders (which look similar to arachnids but have some important differences), and horseshoe crabs (which, despite their name, have important differences from other crustaceans).

Myriapods

The term “myriapod” means “many legs” – so it is not surprising that centipedes, milipedes, and other many-legged creatures are part of this family.

Myriapods can have anywhere from less than ten legs – to over 750! That just seems excessive.

Myriapods are typically found in forests and other ecosystems where there is lots of decaying plant and animal material for them to feed on.

Crustaceans

Crustaceans are a family of primarily aquatic arthropods that include lobsters, crabs, shrimp, crayfish, barnacles, and the odd one out – wood lice, also known as pill bugs or “roly polys.”

Unlike their aquatic cousins, wood lice live mostly on dry land and are found in environments such as gardens and forests, where they survive by eating decaying plant and animal material.

It may also surprise you to see barnacles included on this list: adult barnacles develop hard shells that stick them to their surroundings, such as the bottoms of boats or other underwater surfaces.

But earlier in their lives before they freeze in place, barnacles have bodies with legs much like the other crustaceans!

Hexapods

The term “hexapod” literally means “six feet.” It might not surprise you to learn that insects – which all have six legs – are hexapods.

Insects include most “bugs” with six legs, such as flies, ants, termites, beetles, dragonflies, mosquitoes, cockroaches, butterflies, and moths.

There are also three much smaller groups of animals in the “hexapod” category. Collembola, Protura, and Diplura were all once considered to be insects, but later found to have small differences that set them apart from other insects.

Examples of Arthropods

Ants

When you think of a stereotypical arthropod body, you probably think of an ant. Ants have hard exoskeletons and jointed legs. They also have bodies which are clearly segmented into a head, thorax, and abdomen.

Ants show one type of social organization that has been developed by arthropods. Ants, bees, and termites are all what is called “eusocial” organisms – organisms living in extreme degree of cooperation, with “colonies” that almost operate like a single organism themselves.

Most arthropod species are not eusocial, but eusocial colony life is one of the fascinating roads that arthropod evolution has taken.

Spiders

Spiders are also arthropods, possessed of hard exoskeletons, segmented bodies, and jointed limbs.

Spiders typically eat smaller arthropods, such as gnats and flies – though they will eat any living thing they can catch, and some particularly huge spiders have been known to eat birds or rodents!

Spiders have evolved a variety of strategies for catching their prey – some spin sticky, nearly invisible webs that prey animals wander into and get stuck. Others are active hunters, including jumping spiders which can jump at extreme speeds using special mechanisms in their legs.

Some spiders combine these two strategies, such as “trap door” spiders, which set traps by creating hiding places for themselves – and then jumping out to grab unsuspecting prey animals that wander by!

Lobsters

With lobster being considered a luxury food today, it’s easy to forget that lobsters are in the same family as spiders and ants.

Crustaceans can grow bigger underwater than on land – and lobsters can grow to weigh nearly 50 pounds!

Lobsters’ body design has changed little in the last 100 million years, and their anatomy is spectacularly weird. The lobster’s kidneys are located in its head, its brain in its throat, and its teeth in its stomach. Its “ears” for picking up sound are located in its legs, and its tastebuds, like those of insects, are in its feet.

Butterflies

Butterflies are the most famous example of arthropod metamorphosis.

At some point in their lifecycle, all arthropods go through a drastic change from their larval stage to their adult form. But butterflies are the only ones whose adult forms are so beautiful that we pay attention to this change.

The common features of exoskeleton, jointed limbs, and segmented body can be seen in adult butterflies.

Facts About Arthropods

Arthropods colonized land about 100 million years before vertebrates did. It’s thought that colonizing land was easier for them for several reasons – including the fact that they had already evolved legs, which they used for walking on the bottom of the sea.

About 80% of all animal species are arthropods! We don’t see them very often in our daily lives, but all the species of bugs and crustaceans on Earth add up!

All arthropods undergo metamorphosis – a process where their bodies change radically as they pass from their larval to adult stages. Butterflies are the best-known for entering cocoons as caterpillars and coming out quite different, but all arthropods do something similar!

When arthropods outgrow their old exoskeleton, they have to molt – leaving behind their former skin and growing a new one. All arthropods have to do this at least once in their lives.

Crustaceans and arachnids – two types of arthropods – have blue blood instead of red blood!This is because their blood uses a blue copper compound to carry oxygen, instead of the red iron compound used by animals.

Arthropods’ hard exoskeletons is made of chitin – which is made of a derivative of the sugar glucose! But chitin would not taste sweet, and you wouldn’t be able to eat it; to make it hard and strong, the glucose is modified so that our bodies no longer recognize it as sugar.

Related Biology Terms

Common ancestor – A common ancestor is an individual or species from which multiple individuals or species evolved.

Evolution – The process by which populations change over time, due to random mutation and the pressures of natural selection.

Extinction – The process by which a species ceases to exist after the death of its last member. Most species that have lived on Earth to date are now extinct.

Quiz

1. Which of the following is NOT true of arthropods? A. They have exoskeletons made of chitin. B. They are symmetrical, having the same features on one side of their body as the other. C. They colonized land long before vertebrate animals did. D. None of the above.

Answer to Question #1

D is correct. All of the above are true of arthropods!

2. Which of the following is NOT a type of arthropod? A. Hexapods B. Crustaceans C. Cephalopods D. Myriapods

Answer to Question #2

C is correct. The term “cephalopod” has the Greek word “pod” for “foot” in it – but that doesn’t mean they’re an arthropod! Cephalopods are the family of squids, octopuses, and other creatures that decidedly do not have exoskeletons, jointed limbs, or segmented bodies.

3. Which of the following is NOT an arthropod? A. A scorpion B. A snail C. A dust mite D. A crab

Answer to Question #3

B is correct. A snail is not an arthropod. Although it has a shell which could be argued to be a sort of exoskeleton, its shell is not jointed. The snail lacks a true exoskeleton, jointed limbs or a segmented body. The other organisms on this list have all of those things.