#why can parrots talk and not other animals

[spencerreidenjoyer]

let you lock me down (tonight) | spencer reid x reader

You'd never really thought about having kids, but Spencer just might change your mind.

wc: 600, rating: explicit/18+

tags: breeding kink (this is the whole premise of the fic. oops?), talk of having kids/pregnancy, established relationship, fem!reader, set in s10-11

a/n: no reason for this other than the fact that sabrina carpenter's juno is one of my fav songs off the short n' sweet album. also i was probably ovulating when i started this drabble sorryyyy

You know Spencer had wanted kids since you first got together.

It hadn’t come up until a few dates in, where Spencer had been a little late to dinner because he was helping to watch over his colleague’s kid. He’d talked for half the night about how much he adored her kid as his godfather, with his colleague having a second one on the way, and how he wanted to be a dad someday.

You would’ve found it more creepy if you weren’t extremely endeared. Spencer was undeniably loving, caring, and impossibly sweet, and dating him was easy. Being with Spencer is easy. You get him, and he gets you.

You know Spencer wants kids, and that’s why when you mention it you���re not surprised by how he reacts.

It just happens to be in the middle of sex.

“Fuck, baby,” you giggle, Spencer being extremely eager as he pushes into you. “You’re so needy. It’s like you wanna put a baby in me.” 

Spencer chokes, his hips stuttering at your filthy words, and it just pushes him deeper into your tightness. “Oh, my God.”

“Does that sound good? You filling me up with your cum until it takes?” you moan, as Spencer rolls his hips into you. It shoves his thick cock deeper inside of you, bullying his way past your tight walls. 

“You make me sound like an animal,” Spencer complains, but his breathlessness tells you that he’s into it. He’s still fucking into you – hard, eager, desperate.

“You could fuck me like an animal,” you swoon, just a little, rather pleased with yourself and the fact that Spencer is so into this, so into you. “Wanna claim me as yours?”

Spencer laughs, shaking his head. “You’re going to be the death of me.”

“Not before you get me pregnant,” you tease, waggling your eyebrows. “Come on, you know you want to.”

”You are literally insane,” Spencer says, stilling his hips. They’re pressed flush against you, but he looks down at you sternly. “Are you being serious right now?”

You purse your lips, considering Spencer’s own concerned look. “Kind of?”

”Kind of?” Spencer parrots back. “Be more specific.”

”Maybe I just wanna enable your breeding kink,” you smirk, locking your legs around Spencer’s waist. The movement pushes him inside of you a little deeper, and he whines. 

Spencer rolls his eyes, half exasperated and half endeared. “I don’t have a breeding kink.”

“You do, baby,” you giggle. “And getting pregnant wouldn’t be so bad.”

Spencer’s eyes are so wide they look like they could pop out of his skull. “You– You can’t just say things like that! And we are not having a conversation about family planning while I’m inside of you.”

”Now would be the perfect time to talk about having kids,” you offer, but Spencer glares at you.

Smiling, you wriggle your hips just to get a rise out of Spencer. It works, you note, as he whimpers with the movement. ”Okay, so after you’re done with me?” 

“We’ve only been dating for three months,” Spencer says, furrowing his brows. 

“I know,” you nod. “And I mean it. You— You make me want to. Consider kids, I mean.”

Spencer sighs, but you see the way his eyes soften, hear the warmth in his voice as he tries to seem normal and calm about all of this. “Okay. I’ll make you cum and then we can talk about kids.”

“Aww. How romantic,” you say, as Spencer leans forward to kiss you again, and to fuck you again.

While you’d never seriously thought about having kids, Spencer is certainly making you reconsider.

[suiana]

yandere! parrot hybrid and biologist reader who first discovered what parrots are.

okay so like, imagine this is the 1800s or smth idk when parrots were first discovered.

anyway!!! you're a biologist and you're travelling through the different biomes like the jungle, the rainforests... just travelling to discover and explore the different species of animals.

one day while travelling, you see a... vibrant flock of feathers? woah... was there someone else in the forest- WAURGH?!

instead of seeing another human, you see a cross-breed bird thing??? what the HELL is this...

GORGEOUS SPECIMEN??? WHAT A FLAMBOYANT MAN BIRD!

"holy shit you are beautiful!"

you exclaim in excitement, jumping up as you immediately stare at ut from a distance all while slowly approaching it to take down its details. man you never knew that such a beautiful animal existed!

communication with him could be hard...

until he repeated your own words back at you.

"holy shit you are beautiful!"

an awkward silence fell over the two of you as your notebook fell to the ground. what? did you just... hear this man bird speak? were your ears deceiving you?

"um, you just spoke?"

"um, you just spoke?"

you could only gawk at him as he tilted his head to the side and smiled cutely at you. his vibrant feathers rustled softly as he hopped closer to you and started nuzzling into your neck.

holy shit... the man bird... could talk! this... this is the discovery of the century!

um, he's also kinda clingy? wait what's he doing? why is he licking you? wait hold on just a sec-

"hey put me down!"

"hey put me down!"

okay, this repeating is getting annoying now.

"can you say anything other than just repeating what i say?"

"you're my mate now."

what the hell?!

[avocado-writing]

Hi dear! I would like to appreciate your works. I really enjoy everything you wrote, Wish you have a great day! 💗

Since you're taking requests, could you please write Wade with a polite, sweet and delicate partners. He's with a person who's the definition of "Too pure for this world and MUST be PROTECTED at all cost" His partner showers him with love and validation, and always love to listen to him! Thanks! 💓

possibly based on real life events.

Wade Wilson is so in love, it must be sickening to everyone around him. 

In fact he knows it is and he does not care. He’ll say “look at this meme the love of my life sent me!” and the person who he shows will roll their eyes, as if you don’t have incredible taste in cat pictures. He’ll monologue constantly about how cute you are and how much he loves that scrunchy thing you do with your nose. He’s recited committed-to-memory facts about you so many times that his friends can parrot them too. 

“Yes, I know what their favourite film is, I know you took them to a special viewing of it for their birthday. It’s cute, Wade,” says Laura, patting him on the arm condescendingly. Well, it’s not his fault you’re so wonderful! There isn’t a single thing about you that’s not perfect. He’s constantly bowled over about just how much affection he can fit in his body for you. The other night he was going on about something stupid - he can’t even remember what now, maybe it was about the new Taco Bell menu? - and then realised you hadn’t interrupted him once to shut him up like most people would.

You’d looked over the top of your magazine at him when he’d pointed this out, brow cocked.

“Why would I want you to shut up? I like listening to you talk, Wade.”

Marry you. He’s going to marry you. Every day, then divorce you every day too so he can marry you again. 

You are probably too good for him. Most of his social circle thinks so. You’re patient and kind, when you’re not at your job - where you work at a charity adopting out senior animals, as if you could be any more of a fucking angel - you like to spend your time in his shitty little kitchen, baking desserts for him to get home to. He’ll find you getting Al to taste test for you and his apartment full of laughter and joy. 

Man, he’s definitely put on like, six pounds since the two of you started dating. He needs to be stronger in the face of your cupcakes. 

They are really fucking good though. 

He walks in that night with a plushie under his arm. It’s a cow. He remembers you mentioning offhand how cute you thought cows were, so he decided to grab the biggest one the toy store one the way home had just because he knows it’ll make you smile. You don’t need any more stuffed toys; you sleep with them all in the bed and they’re pushing him off the side at this point because of their sheer number but, well, he likes seeing you happy. 

And then he hears sobbing. 

“Sweetheart?” he asks, immediately panicked. Are you injured? Has someone come to hurt you - has he painted a target on your back because of his job? Bile fills his throat as he stumbles forward…

…and there you are, sitting in front of the TV, PlayStation controller in your lap as tears run down your face while the end of the game plays out. Wade has never felt such relief in his life, laughing as the ache of it is taken from his chest. You turn to him with wide, watery eyes. 

“Don’t you laugh at me, Wade Wilson!”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry. But babe… are you crying at the end of Kingdom Hearts?”

“No!” you lie, trying to mop your face off with your sleeve. Then the music hits its crescendo from the crappy speakers and you start wailing all over again. 

He loves you. He’d kill a million billion people for you. It would take a hell of a long time but hey, one word and he’d do it. If anyone even lifted a finger to hurt you he’d execute them so thoroughly that every generation of their family would be wiped out of existence too. 

To put it in terms you’d approve of, he’d do anything for you. But he also knows you’d never ask him to. You’re just that wonderful. 

“… would it help if I got us take-out and you started playing the second one?”

“Uh-huh,” you manage to confirm. 

“I could be in this fucking game, beat Donald Duck’s little feathery ass. Disney, make it happen.”

“What?”

“Don’t worry about it. Pizza or Chinese?”

Taglist: @falsewordz @malfoys-demigod @belilwen @mildly-salted @tvwebs @childeslegstrap @getmeoutofhell @s1eep-o @just-a-beatlemaniac69 @yrthr @momopad @sugarplumz100 @captainjinkx @madspads @acrosstheunivcrse @yeethaw13 @na-is-salty @florduarte @hunterispunk

[bbytamaki]

more random obey me headcanons >:)

content: sfw headcanons, scars mentioned (from piercings), belphie has depression, all family love <3, not proofread >:((

note: i haven’t done any dateable hcs yet :(( might do some soon

— lucifer can’t stand bananas. it’s just a thing. even the smell will have him pressing his handkerchief over his mouth like a sick victorian man. does satan use this to his advantage? possibly.

— has very feminine hands. he covers them with gloves so he doesn’t have to hear asmo’s jealous whining. if anyone brings it up he’s not above strangling them with his dainty, girlish fingers.

— flexible. like shockingly. it doesn’t really come to light that often but every once in a while lucifer follows single mom yoga videos on the weekends.

— mammon has the prettiest facial features ever. like his eyes and lips look so good in candid photos. his magazine covers are the bane of asmo’s existence.

— bird tendencies. like i mean squawking and jumping like 3 feet in the air when startled. in his demon form he’s just a big parrot. he does the head tilt thing when he’s confused.

— if anyone stands in front of him for longer than a minute he’s picking lint out of their hair and fixing their clothes. his brothers have gotten more than used to his “preening” and either avoid standing around him for too long or just take it. lucifer does this too and sometimes they’ll just stand and fix each other’s clothes for like 5 minutes straight while everyone else is like “???”

— levi is tall. very tall. he’s just so scrawny and lanky and his posture is awful so you wouldn’t even notice until he actually straightens up to his full height. this rarely ever happens unless he’s in his demon form. when it does he is scary.

— cosplays online. his cosplay friends are some of his favorite people. he already sews his own costumes (as we’ve seen), and he’s really good at makeup. one of his future plans is to meet up in the human world to go to a con with his friends.

— screams like a little girl. one time mammon accidentally walked into the bathroom when levi was showering and he shrieked. lucifer ran to see what the commotion was because “how did a human child find their way into the devildom??” levi has never felt more embarrassed.

— satan watches trashy reality tv in his private time. bad girls club, keeping up with the kardashians, you name it.

— can sing the whole periodic table song by tom lehrer forward and backward. i think satan is actual really good at science and it would be his best and favorite subject.

— he just likes animals in general. he has a thing for bunnies after visiting a human world petting zoo.

— asmo has an abnormally long tongue, like surpassing attractive and approaching freakish. he usually keeps it in his mouth but once every so often decides to creep solomon out just for fun.

— has soooo many stripper friends. if you’re wondering how his hair and makeup stay in place the whole day, he learned from the best.

— he definitely designed an entire line of lingerie but only made one of each design. they’re ultra rare collectibles in the devildom and worth more than you could imagine.

— beel can french braid and make friendship bracelets like he’s going to a girl scout camp. nobody can tell me he didn’t hand make the necklaces he wears.

— speaking of martha stewart beel, he can crochet and makes blankets and cute plushies for belphie all the time.

— luke is actually his little brother and no one can convince him otherwise lol they go back and forth over nothing all the time and stop talking to each other until one of them says “what do you want for dinner”

— belphie is the king of doing his own piercings at home because why pay $50 for something he already knows how to do? he ends up taking some of them out before they heal because he gets tired of them and ends up with a bunch of scars on his face and body.

— you and beel are his dream journal. he texts the attic club gc after every nap to tell you guys what his latest dream was about. (you’re the two people that show up in his dreams the most.)

— goes absolutely dormant during depressive episodes. the complete opposite of his twin brother (beel has to keep busy at all times to stay distracted). asmo carries him to his private bathroom and lets belphie pick his favorite soaps and lotions (he likes the ones that smell like sandalwood, they remind him of taking naps in his brothers’ rooms).

[komoboko]

Can you do hashira react to your pet? Tyyy🩷

𝐡𝐚𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐫𝐚𝐬 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐚 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫 𝐰𝐡𝐨 𝐨𝐰𝐧𝐬 𝐚 𝐩𝐞𝐭

ft: Gyomei Himejima, Sanemi Shinazugawa, Obanai Iguro, Giyu Tomioka, Mitsuri Kanroji, Muichiro Tokito, Kyojuro Rengoku, shinobu Kocho, Tengen Uzui

who was gon tell me shionbu was afraid of fluffy animals

# gyomei ! ☆

You start to wonder if your cat may love GYOMEI more than it loves you. Gyomei was simply excited once you told him about your cat, but he wasn’t expecting to get attached to quickly. He’ll always try to make time in his day to take care of your cat, feeding it, bathing it, playing with it. Gyomei always makes the effort to bond with it. It’s not often you come home to see gyomei asleep with your cat lying right beside him.

# sanemi ! ☆

SANEMI trys to pretend that he doesn’t like your dog. When you first tell him about your dog his whole attitude doesn’t change and he really just puts on the persona like he doesn’t care. You know he just putting up a facade though, and he isn’t the best at hiding it. Especially when you found him sitting on the porch while trying to teach it new tricks by bribing it with treats.

# obanai ! ☆

He has kabumaru so OBANAI is prepared to take care of your pet, until he realizes you own a rabbit. It's not like he doesn't like it, in fact he thinks its quite cute if he was being honest. Its just that kabumaru doesn't really get along well with your rabbit, is what he says after kabumaru tried to eat your rabbit. Now you have ban obanai from pet sitting if kabumaru was with him.

# giyu ! ☆

GIYU is oddly similar to your pet cat. It's almost uncanny when you take in their similarities which is why you weren't surprised how much they got along when you introduced him to your cat. Your cat will linger around him when he stops by and will generally just spend all his time lazing about as giyu just accepts it and lets it due as it pleases.

# mitsuri ! ☆

When you tell MITSURI that you own a rabbit, she nearly destroys your eardrums with how loud she squealed. She fawns over it like it's her own child and does absolutely everything possible with it. Cooking? Your rabbit is reading the ingredients. Training? Your rabbit is cheering her on. Reading? your rabbit is in her lap fast asleep.

# muichiro ! ☆

MUICHIRO doesn't seem to question why you own a pet snake. Obanai has kabumaru, why couldn't you have one of your own. He likes to watch it slither around as he lets it hang on around his arm while he hangs out in your estate. Though, he has by accident let your snake out while uzui was visiting leading to it nearly eating his gym rats.

# kyojuro ! ☆

Not surprisingly, KYOJURO absolutely loves your dog. He always active with the dog. Many of the lower ranks have seen him walking your dog around the corps. Though, you do have to tell rengoku that your dog can't eat everything as he prepares to feed it a five star meal, that you happily took and ate ten minutes later.

# shinobu ! ☆

SHINOBU pulls a reverse sanemi as she tries to support your choice of getting a cat, but she refuses to see it. Your not sure why but shinobu absolutely shuts down any idea of seeing your cat in person. You can't grasp onto her fear of flufffy animal but you let it slide for now. The only time she does consider even taking a look is when you told her you got a hairless cat.

# uzui ! ☆

For some reason you let UZUI influence you in getting a pet, leading you to get a "flashy" pet parrot. He takes the parrot everywhere and always talks about how flamboyant it is and how much flashier it is compared to any other pet (he mainly says it just to spite obanai). Though you had to leave the parrot at your estate after you seen him let the parrot. fly around with his gym rats stapped onto its back.

[seat-safety-switch]

I don't think I'm alone in hating helicopters. Unlike other kinds of vehicles, there is no direct animal comparison to the helicopter. Planes? Birds. Cars? Cats or something, I guess. Tanks? Uhhh different kind of cat. Hot air balloon? Okay, now you're just trying some shit, but – jellyfish, how's that? Not so smart now, are you?

All throughout our history, mankind has drawn inspiration from the animal kingdom in order to engineer things. It's very reliable. After all, it's been around for millions of years without a single warranty claim. Once in awhile, though, someone gets a little clever and tries to exploit the laws of physics to do something we don't see in nature. Case in point: helicopters.

Have you ever wondered why otherwise competent pilots have so many horrifying crashes in helicopters? And I'm not even talking the usual ones, like smoking a building or getting tangled up in power lines. Some snot-nosed kid with bottle rockets on the back of his BMX could do those. I'm talking full-on, uncontrollable auto-rotation, Jesus-nut-fell-off-the-rotors, nothing you can do but wait to die crashes. The kind of stuff that scares the folks that operate them. It's because helicopters are an affront to proud Mother Nature herself.

Helicopters aren't just bad on one axis: they're loud, they're obnoxious, and nobody really knows how to fly one. If I put your ass in a Boeing right now, you'd probably be able to keep it in the air for a half-hour or so while an adult tells you what button to make it land. Helicopter? There's no chance. You'd flip it upside down, it would enter an unrecoverable state, and we'd both be sausage patties on the freeway. Because it has not crossed paths with our evolution to date, we have no natural intuition for this hostile alien artifact.

Sure, there's lots of other things where we've thumbed our nose at her, too. Particle accelerators, like the one that pushed us into this alternate timeline. Computers, which allow horrifying thoughts to be beamed instantaneously to billions of receptive minds. PTFE, which makes pans non-stick for about a week or two but will kill your parrot. None of these things are as disturbing or as vicious as the not-so-humble helicopter. So let's smash them all, and then put the engines in our hot rods.

[clanwarrior-tumbly]

pleeeeaaaasee do more shane x reader (preferably gender neutral). Your writing is so good and the "After everything we've been through, you still don't think that I love you?" one broke me. You're a hurt/comfort master

HAH you've given me another idea from this ask alone (insp by my farmer getting alex's 8 heart event while married to shane)

Sorry gang I swear fluffier stuff with Shane is coming

.....

It was just a few days into summer, and Shane already had plans to change up his usual routine once again.

Ever since moving onto your farmland, he found himself getting more motivated to take longer walks. This morning, he planned on doing so after ensuring the crops were watered and the animals were well-fed.

He greeted the cows, rabbit, pigs, and chickens as they filed out of the coop and barn one-by-one, not letting any of them miss their daily pets. Seeing the ostrich and little green dinosaur emerge didn't faze him as much as it did the first time he saw them--he still had no clue how you acquired their eggs (especially one from the skull caverns), but you didn't treat them any differently.

They were both lovable creatures. Just like the blue chickens he introduced you to several months ago.

Knowing you raised some and kept them on the farm made him beam with pride, glad he got to stay here and help run things in your steed.

He wouldn't trade it for the world.

You set off for the beach earlier than usual today, having left a note on the table, and Shane opted to just hang back and repair some of the fences that were looking a bit worn out.

According to the TV, it was a "good luck day", and you hoped to find fortune in the form of a rainbow shell washed up on the coast. You certainly loved foraging them, but even if there weren't any around, you figured you'd go fishing.

Your husband wasn't the best at either skill, although a few hours after you left, he felt a little bored and decided to go visit the beach. Maybe you could use his moral support since other people--mainly Willy and Elliot-mentioned hearing you curse like a sailor when you were wrestling with a fish...or when said fish escaped your line.

He could be there to cheer you up, or teasingly bet on how many joja cola cans you'll fish out of the ocean.

That would be pretty funny, he thought.

So he headed off on his usual walking route, but instead of going to Cindersap Forest or stopping by Pelican Town's river, he ventured towards the beach, greeting whoever said "hello" to him.

Upon arrival, however, Shane stopped in his tracks as he noticed you weren't entirely alone on the beach.

It wasn't Willy, Elliot, Leah, nor that parrot kid you rescued from Ginger Island, but Alex.

He wouldn't have minded that so much....if not for the fact that you two were sitting awfully close together on the coast, overlooking the foamy waves. You were totally oblivious to his presence, so he hung back with suspicion.

Of course, he knew you were growing more sociable with the rest of the villagers, and he didn't want your marriage to be the reason you stopped talking to people.

Even so..something didn't feel right about this, especially as he watched you move closer to Alex, putting an arm around him. And when the younger male put his head on your shoulder, Shane's heart dropped.

You were talking, but obviously he couldn't make out what you were saying thanks to the noisy waves and annoying seagulls.

At this point, however, it became clear what was going on.

And it made him feel utterly sick to his stomach, his mind constantly circling back to one conclusion. Only one explanation as to why you'd ever be that close to Alex, and perhaps why you've been frequently leaving the farm earlier than normal:

You were seeing him behind his back, thinking he'd never find out.

He didn't know how else to interpret that. How else could he?

But of everybody in this town, why did it have to be the guy who reminded him of his youthful days in gridball?

The guy who radiated positivity and was always in high spirits?

The guy who wasn't old and weak and depressed...like him?

'I knew it..they finally got bored of me. But why would they do this?' Scowling, he felt like storming over and saying something, but he couldn't will himself to freak out here and now.

No.

Why bother?

Instead he decided to turn on his heel and storm back to the farm, nearly tripping over a rainbow shell as he did so. The saloon was closed, so he couldn't escape there...but he'll settle for rotting in bed until you come home.

You'll be back, and he'll confront you then.

.......

Coming back to the farmland around noon, you frowned a bit as you didn't see Shane anywhere outside. He wasn't at the mini coop like he normally was, and poor Charlie was looking for him.

"Where did he go, Charles? Hm?" With a soft coo, you kneeled down to pet the chicken. She clucked, her beak pointing towards the cabin, and you thanked her with a small handful of corn before continuing inside.

However, as soon as you stepped into a rather quiet house, all the excitement sapped out of you. You'd normally hear him playing video games or watching a Tunneler's game, but as you entered your shared bedroom...you found him just laying down, his back turned to you.

"Hey, honey." You sighed, relieved as you sat down on the mattress. "All that farmwork got tiring, huh? I understand. Thank you for doing it."

"........."

"..Shane? You still asleep?"

There was a long silence, only for it to be broken by a quiet sniffle, and your heart sunk, wondering what happened. "Hey, what's wrong-?"

As you put a hand on his shoulder, Shane flinched and rolled over to face you, his eyes red and watery, and his expression full of disgust...as though you did something wrong.

You've never seen him get this angry at you. Not since your first meeting with him. "Baby-?"

"No. Enough petnames, [y/n]." He huffed, sitting up and staring at you with contempt. "You don't get to act like everything's fine. Like I don't know what's really going on."

"...what?"

"Why were you with Alex today? Did he convince you I wasn't good enough for you anymore? That I'm past my prime?"

You blinked in bewilderment, wondering how on earth he knew that and why he was getting so upset. "Wha..you were at the beach? Why didn't you tell me?"

"That's..not important." He grumbled. "If you love him more, fine. Just tell me. I was ready for the day you'd finally get sick of me. But..to do that behind my back...I just..." Fresh tears brimmed his eyes as he clutched the mermaid pendant with a shaky hand. "I thought you were different..but I was wrong."

Now you were totally lost, heart racing as you tried to wrack your brain for any reason he'd assume that you were cheating on him with Alex. You knew he had some major jealousy issues, and he's been actively working through them with his therapist, but it was never this bad.

"Listen, I promise that what you saw isn't what it-"

"You don't have to lie. I get it. He's young, better looking...he's everything I used to be. So why don't I just go and you can have him live on this farm with you? At least he won't be a burden. At least he won't-"

"Shane just stop. Stop." You raised your voice, growing infuriated. "What in the hell made you think I wanna be with Alex when we're married?! When I've been nothing but there for you since I moved to town?! If you let me finish, I'll explain everyth-"

"Oh I'm sure you have a "perfect" explanation already lined up." He rolled his eyes. "Unless you can tell me why you were that close to him, I don't see why I'm even-"

"Today's the anniversary of his mom's death."

Shane blinked once.

Then twice.

Then three times.

"Wha..?"

"She passed away 12 years ago." Frowning slightly, you watched his expression shift wildly. "Alex was sitting there, crying his eyes out, and I just...wanted to comfort him. Like any friend would do. That's all."

At this moment, Shane felt like the biggest piece of shit in the valley, and his shoulders sagged. He didn't know what to say.

"We just hugged, and he told me about the good memories they had," you continued, moving closer to put a hand over his own. "Cross my heart, absolutely nothing was going on between us, honey. You really think I'd do that to you? To the man I love?"

"....I....I didn't know he lost his mom.." He mumbled, still at a loss for words.

"Well it's not exactly something he'd share with the whole town. And I was gonna keep it between us, but you wouldn't let me explain myself." You reminded him with a small huff, and he looked down in guilt.

As quickly as your anger rose, however, it was quick to disappear as you watched him. He seemed very torn up and ashamed for accusing you of cheating, but you could understand his perspective and why he saw it in that light.

You would've been suspicious, too.

"Look..I know it did look like something else was going on. And I'm really sorry-"

"No, no..I should be sorry for acting like a total dickhead." Shane gazed back up at you, and his face tore your heart to shreds. "I didn't mean to freak and accuse you of anything. You were just comforting a kid who lost his mom and...I got angry for no reason. Without hearing your side. I shouldn't be like this..yet I feel like some bitter old man.."

"Hey, you're not old." You shook your head, cupping both sides of his cheeks and giving him a gentle kiss. "You're barely 30."

"Still..my body feels that way." He lightly chuckled, enveloping you in a tight hug. "And again, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, [y/n]...I promise I'm working on these stupid jealousy issues."

"I know you are, and I forgive you." Smiling, you squeezed him tight. "We're gonna be okay."

"Mhm..also..um..I found something for you." He let you go and dug into his jacket pocket for an unknown item, and when he presented it to you, the grin on your face was infectious.

"Oh my god..you found one for me?!!" Your eyes lit up, as you now held a beautiful rainbow shell in your hands.

Shane nodded. "Iridium quality."

"You're the best. I love you." Laughing, you brought him back into a hug, giving him a few more kisses. "And you said you sucked at foraging, huh?"

"Ah, well..just the "chopping trees" part. Picking stuff off the ground is easy." He shrugged, his smile bashful. "Glad you like it, sweetheart. Take it as my apology for that..um..misunderstanding."

"I forgive you a thousand times over. Now..I think I'll display this beauty in our aquarium. What do you think, Shane?"

"I think I'll go with and see."

You both hopped out of bed and headed over to where you kept the aquarium tanks, with Shane in better spirits than he was before.

He still felt guilty for acting that way towards you, but your everlasting patience and persistence with him prevails.

He's glad he picked up that rainbow shell for you.

[kalkori]

ok regretevator fandom i know its "canon" that fleshcousins are only sentient and not sapient but when you look at the dialogue of fleshcousins it seems to say the opposite.

fleshcousins can and will react to being referred to negatively

not only in this instance with gnarpy does fleshcousin argue with gnarpy, it also emphasizes words like how someone irritated would. like hello?

chat fleshcousin literally tells lampert to kill himself after being insulted. there is no conversation elsewhere where fleshcousin gets told to kill itself to learn this. also before the threat it tries to insult lampert. thats not a parrot thats a very insulted and very salty creature.

in the first interaction with spud, the fleshcousin seems to be talking to itself and then appears to get irritated when spud is like "wow i could have ended up like you guys"

in the second interaction with spud, it seems to actually correct him and then, to me, appears to do its equivalent of an irritated grunt when spud is like "you're just like a personal diary!!"

the above is more tangentially related but fleshcousin seems to not only be genuinely irritated by unpleasant's existence, but then proceeds to also use language of others that it has learned. i find it interesting that specifically gnarpy and infected are used here, as gnarpy is the one who has the most irritated dialogue to learn from, and infected is the most related to unpleasant

2. it knows how to communicate discomfort/pain

ok i know this sounds weird but trust me. in most animals that can be trained to use words to communicate, it often takes A WHILE for them to accurately use language to mention pain. normally they learn stuff for things like food first.

for this one, the second and third line are my focus. the first one is pretty clear in the distaste for the snowball. however, the third line reveals not only a negative reaction, but trying to joke about it. "kb what is the joke" well you see my non-fleshcousin-brained friend, the joke is [as best translated as possible] "is it already winter?"

the flash beacon is what we're really here for though. not only can it associate bright, painful light to something it already knows, it A: communicates that it hurts and B: is able to recognize that you control it and asks you to stop hurting it

the reason why that is Huge is that most animals don't as for you to stop. they either run away or fight. when they ask for things to stop, most commonly its with another animal in the same species with their (body) language.

fleshcousin asks for you to stop in YOUR language!! thats huge!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

3. fleshcousins can recollect people and inform others about them‚ and can potentially observe other peoples relationships

first off, fleshcousin tells mark that wallter misses him. [also, it appears it finds it funny that mark censors itself but that might just be me]

in this one, fleshcousin tells wallter that mark misses him and just how much he does, as well!!!! like hello thats crazy!!

this one has fleshcousin describe its own relationship with bive and scary mike, which honestly makes me want to bawl my eyes out. like it calls her and mike friends. i literally will cry forever about this

but the most interesting thing fleshcousin mentions multiple times...

IS HOW OFTEN IT MENTIONS FOLLY, AND SOMETIMES MIMICS HER?!

the last one under petal cone references folly's laugh

this one might be a stretch but i think this idle is referencing folly's forest, the "barn" being the forest and "the wrongs" referencing how closely related folly's deal is to malice

when you look at its folly interactions it seems VERY interested in folly

we're mentioning the farm again

we're just straight up describing folly here. hello!!

now listen any other time i'd call it a stretch but its talking to wallter, who it knows the relationships of. folly is heavily associated with that gigantic tree. pillows are associated with sleep. this has to be at least a red herring. like. chat.

theres more but this is already getting too long. chat fleshcousins are sapient if you look at the actual writing, whether intended or not!!

[ravendarkwood]

Some of my favorite things about Chayanne!

He likes swimming! The reason Phil has that bath outside of his house is because that was a little swimming area for Chayanne when Philza and Missa first build his house. Swimming was one of the first things he did when they got him up the wall (it was very cute). I also very distinctly remember a moment where Phil and Chayanne visited Bad's house, and Chayanne took off his armor and swam for a bit in this two by two infinite water source that Bad had inside his house while Phil and Bad talked. He wants to be a water dragon when he hatches into a dragon.

He likes being up high! Or, if there's a random block up a bit higher than other blocks Chayanne will get up onto it. A very popular choice is that orange wool that is outside of his house. If I remember correctly Missa gave it to him for a bed (this was the first day and they didn't know how the eggs operated so they didn't know that he had like a bed bed. They also fed him seeds for a while because they didn't know he needed actual food).

Chayanne used to throw himself off of the wall a lot, which is why the fence and walls were put up. I think he enjoys making his fathers worry and likes exciting things. I saw a twitter post point out that Chayanne used to be a lot more disobedient until one day that led to Ramon's first death, and that's been living rent free in my head.

Chayanne can be suspicious of strangers! The first time that Wilbur showed up at Chayanne's house he attacked him before Phil reassured Chayanne that Wil was a friend. Another time this is illustrated is that one of the first times Chayanne met Richarlyson he asked him a bunch of questions trying to figure out here he came from.

Going off that last bit, Chayanne is actually interested in knowing about the mysteries going on in the island when it pertains to the safety of others. He questioned Richarlyson when he first showed up, asking where he came from and if he was a danger to others, and the day that Phil had to defend Chayanne , Richarlyson, and Leo from the code Phil actually wanted to leave early, but Chayanne wanted to stay because he was eavesdropping on the other adults because they were talking about the eggs.

Chayanne is very quiet! He's said a few times that he struggles with words and expressing himself, and he uses body language to communicate a lot. One of my favorite moments is when he threw Phil is sword, and then started shift dancing on top of the anvil because it was low on durability and he wanted Phil to repair it. Phil was talking to Wil at the same time, and didn't know what Chayanne meant until he clarified it.

Speaking of shift dancing, Chayanne does it a lot. One of my favorite dance moves is when he jumps in the air, spins in a circle, all while shifting. It just makes Chayanne look very excitable and I think it's cute.

If I remember correctly Chayanne's first pet was the white cat that's in the boat outside of Phil's house. It's name is Avocado. Chayanne seems to really enjoy small animals in general, having cats, raccoons, parrots, and axolotls as pets. Phil actually took Chayanne and Tallulah into a cave, and Chayanne took a dive off of the cliff to get one of the axolotls, which lead to a bunch of mobs attacking him. I think that one was one of the two that lived in the pond in front of the house, but I think they accidentally got wiped when other mobs got deleted.

Going off of the last point, when Chayanne sees a raccoon in the wild, he'll pause, crouch down in front of it, stare at it for a few seconds, before going back to running again.

Despite what Phil says, Chayanne actually does enjoy decorating and things looking good. He and Tallulah decorated the basement together, and he argued a bit with BBH when he told Chayanne to use the block enforcer in his safe room because it would make the blocks ugly. He was wanting to decorate his safe room for a while before they got to it.

Chayanne also has some Autumnal vibes to him. When he decorates he uses a lot of oranges and yellows and dark woods and red leaves, and uses jack-o-lanterns a lot for lighting. Since he's gotten it he's also been favoring his jack-o-lantern staff when not in fights, a few times conjuring a Mr. Pumpkin to hang around him. He also has a lot of death vibes, but so does his entire family so.

Chayanne wears a skull helmet a lot when he doesn't need to wear full armor. Missa made him a whole set so they could match, and Chayanne likes wearing it. Recently he's also been wearing a king's crown a lot more, and mixed with Bonnie's "he smells like an old king" thing, this is most likely a reference to Technoblade.

After coming back with cracks Chayanne was very disappointed with himself and that his siblings and him got hurt, and even said that he wanted to be strong like Technoblade. Phil managed to cheer him up by giving him a pep talk about getting back up when pushed down and if Chayanne was Phil's little hero.

Chayanne tends to write and all lowercase, including referring to himself and other's names, but that's not an always thing.

Chayanne and Tallulah are pretty much a team at this point. They'll very often say things like "I've got your back" and things like that to each other when they need reassurance. I bet a lot of people who don't watch Phil have seen Chayanne's "u and me, u and me always" sign to Tallulah when she was extremely distressed about being dirty.

Chayanne tends not to hit people. This is true of Tallulah and Phil too, with Phil only hitting Chayanne or Tallulah by accident or like when it's meant to be a high five or something, and Tallulah gets into slap fights with Chayanne sometimes when they disagree with each other or hits Phil when he says a joke she doesn't like, but Chayanne doesn't usually hit people? When he wants someone to read his sign he stands next to it and does a shift dance or jumps until they notice.

My favorite scene with Chayanne and Phil:

Chayanne: "I mean, gosh I'm bad with words! I don't want to die, I won't die soon, I take everything you [Philza] showed us seriously. Thank you so much of [for?] that. When the giant squid grabbed me I was shaking bc [because] I thought that was the end of it. So yeah, it's not a good feeling."

[A few minutes where they talk about pictures, and Chayanne seems to collect his thoughts?]

"There's something else I want to say. Last time with Forever, I spent so much time out of home. It was nice but felt weird. I'm always saying I want to go to dungeons, but my life so far has been pretty chill. And you know what, I love it it's perfect. I wouldn't change it."

Philza: "Aw, I'm glad Chayanne, I'm glad. I was getting a bit worried I'll be honest when I came back from TwitchCon or wherever and I heard that you had been going through dungeons and stuff and you had so much fun I was like 'aw man. Am I a bad dad?'."

Chayanne: "I once said this to Dad Missa. I don't envy anyone, or anything. I love our current family."

This turned out way longer than I meant it to be. I dunno, what are some of your favorite things about your favorite eggs that people might not know?

[l-in-the-light]

Trafalgar Law and animals

It seems he is quite kind to animals, or at least he seems a little fond of them...

Evidence number 1: napping with a new (quickly tamed) friend on his wandering excursion to nowhere in particular (or so I envision this happening).

Evidence number 2: feeding random parrots just because they wanna try the onigiri. I bet he would feed random ducks at ponds as well lol.

Evidence number 3: after taking away the den den mushis he just released the snails into the wild (or took them inside the lab later, we will never know, lol). He's so bad to animals, right? He could have just crushed them when he was holding them in his palm, but nah, not his style. Snails are cool and didn't do anything wrong after all.

Evidence number 4: Chopper and Bepo. Bepo is self-understandable, but Chopper?? Law told him to shut up like twice. Yeah, but also he talked with him the most about his own issues with the plan (he can't defeat Caesar on his own for some reason he can't tell), and just few moments after meeting him. That's a huge step in the "trust" territory right there. Other Strawhats didn't hear anything about Law's own reasons of why he wants the alliance after all.

Evidence number 5: Komainu in Wano. He wasn't tamed by Tama's dango so he didn't have to listen to their orders or anything like that. It would be understandable if Luffy was the one riding in front, because Komainu spent some time with Luffy already. Law literally saw the Komainu for the first time here, just a moment ago. He already tamed it enough to ride in front and to lead the way to Oden's castle.

Okay, I think that's enough evidence (it's not like I have more anyway lol). Now let's take a look at this again:

I'm starting to think we're misunderstanding this scene. It's not Law being morbid (well, maybe a little), as in: he doesn't love dissecting dead frogs so much that he brought one into the picture. If you want to dissect frogs then you just dissect them, you know? Not carry a dead animal around with you anywhere you go.

Look, forever ago I watched enough American teen shows focused on school life to know that for some kids dissecting animals in anatomy class is a Huge Deal and they just Can't Do It, and they fuss over it for a whole episode. Believe me, if Law wanted to dissect this frog, it wouldn't be here in the picture with him, but it would be lying down dissected on the table, already forgotten. Meanwhile, it doesn't even have any mark that it was cut or anything.

Here's my headcanon about it: I think Law as a kid felt sorry for the frog. Either made it his friend (so what that it's dead? wow so judgemental smh I'm joking) or decided frogs shouldn't be dissected and wanted to give it a proper burial later on. My bet's on a friend though, because why else would he include the frog in the class photo? :D It's a photo with his school friends, it would be rude to exclude his new little friend as well! (the boy on his right clearly loves the idea btw lol. I bet he was good friends with Law)

We assume he wants to dissect it because 1. he comes from family of doctors and is a surgeon, 2. because of this picture:

Which kinda suggests the possible outcome from the encounter of scalpel+frog. But I think we might have to consider the opposite of what we thought he likes to do in his free time as a child (dissecting little animals like a psycho future surgeon in training). He just seems to be nice to animals, that's why. He would be nice to that poor frog as well, no matter if it's dead or not.

And then we have centaurs and I always ask The Question: what happened to the rest of the animal bodies?? (my guess is: they ate them).

I mean... Luffy is also nice to animals. He would still eat some of them, you know, to survive. But not his friends. Possibly also not Chopper.

And then there's this ongoing theme of people of the D. and their special relationship with animals. I mean, Luffy can tame almost any animal (Surume <3), Law has Bepo (though he's a mink, I guess), and Vivi has Carue, right? Three people already create a pattern... we also see a child Garp (in SBS) that tamed some wild beast as well!

[kindaasrikal]

The ninja deserve emotional support animals except they’re them so none of them get a damn dog or something.

Zane has a penguin, he’s lovingly called zaneguin (real name: Peniuella, or Penny) (Penny gets along with Zane’s bird) (he rlly wanted a polar bear. Wu said no) (he waddles with the penguin, bro loves waddling.) (he once waddles over to some villains full penguin style as a on the spot distraction. Cole gave him a lecture about safety and being smart. Zane waddled away right after it was done.)

Kai has a parrot, bro loves his parrot (he’s called parry the parrot and he’s taught him how to scream FIYAAAAA) (Kai is usually the first ninja up for training, so he actually get his parrot to wake the others (Nya) up by putting Parry in their room and getting him to scream their elements.) (its become a common thing to hear ‘WATAHHHHH’ at 6am in the morning) (or ‘GREANNNNNNNN’ or maybe ‘ARTHHHHHH’ in a really deep voice. Cole had nightmares after hearing how deep Parry’s voice can get.)

Lloyd has a ferret, he’s just a ferret kinda guy. He also got a chinchilla soon after cause he got the dust for a dust bath, and then found out ferrets can’t have dust baths (he just wanted a lil guy to have a dust bath with.) (Yeah you heard me, Lloyd does dust baths. He likes the feeling of it.) (he rlly wanted to called his ferret ferry the ferret but Kai already took the joke, he called him Mr Ferrington instead.) (plus his Chinchilla is called Chilly, he loves dressing him up in mini versions of Zane’s gi because of it.)

Nya has two rats, she calls them her babies (don’t insult her rats, she will drown you.) (Jay named one Ratatouille, and as much as she hated the name she had no choice but to keep it, Jay would be sad if she didn’t.) (the other rat is called Rumphly. She thought it sounded sophisticated.) (she lets her rats burrow in her hair.) (she also has to protect everything she owns, her rats chew on everything and anything. Nothing is free from their menacing little mouths.)

Jay has a spider. He’s a lil weirdo like that (its a deadly spider) (he found it in his workshop) (it was 2:54 am and dark) (he almost died from the damn thing) (Pixal almost lost it when Jay literally clung to her begging her not to kill it-sorry, my mistake, her.) (he stays up late at night building stuff and chatting to her and she dances every time Jay goes on an excited ramble.)

Cole has a lizard, and it’s a Chameleon. He named her Lizzy (Kai calls her Queenie.) (he lowkey lost Lizzy on her first day and had a breakdown) (Jay said that defeated the purpose of an emotional support animal) (until at 11pm at night they found out Lizzy was just chilling in Cole’s hair and they just couldn’t tell) (everyone thought Cole was gonna be annoyed, but bro lowkey broke down again because he got emotional about how she clung to him the whole time.) (he got Lizzy because he missed Rocky) (I miss Rocky too)

+extras

Morro has a rabbit. Named Chompy (and they’re a ghost) (lowkey Morro has no idea what Chompy is, the lil brat just jumped onto him and went ‘CHOMP CHOMP CHOMP’ and bit him.) (it looks like a rabbit, if oni’s could be rabbits.) (he blames Garmadon, he probably corrupted the damn thing and now he has some weird monstrous rabbit attached to him) (he does like telling Chompy to attack tho. He finds it hilarious when the other ghosts are sent running) (their convos go like ‘No Chompy, you can’t eat my book’ ‘chomp chomp?’ ‘Because i said so.’ ‘Chomp chomp!’ ‘Uh, yes, i can.’ ‘Chomp chomp chomp!!’ ‘Wha-why you little-’) (everyone thinks he’s mentally unstable for thinking he can understand them) (and maybe he is but you can shove it, he deserves to talk to weird monster animals who actually like him, after what ever octopus bull the preeminent pulled)

Skylor has a turtle, she got him from Griffin (he couldn’t take care of him all the time and got busy so he asked Skylor if she’s willing to co-parent) (she had to agree that turtle was giving her puppy eyes) (they love acting like divorcees) (Kai pretends to the new boyfriend who hates the og partner) (the turtle is named Grecko) (Griffin wanted to mess with people who thought he was talking about an actual Gecko when instead he was talking about a turtle named Grecko) (Skylor loved and hated it at the same time) (she calls him Greg.) (she gets Greg to walk small distances over to kids in her restaurant and give them food) (the kids love him.)

Neuro has a mouse, five, to be precise. (Nya got the idea for a rat from Neuro, who has to explain to her the difference between the two.) (he loves letting them hide in random places of his body.) (don’t be surprised when you’re talking to him and a mouse just pops out of his shirts collar.) (he doesn’t even look phased.) (he’s accepted his fate as a climbing tree) (he is also trying to learn how to speak mouse by reading their minds) (its going…somewhere.)

Pixal has her lil robots. She loves mini pix with all her heart thats her baby.

Wu has his damn chicken and his chicken has been around for centuries. Morro also loved the chicken.

[haveyouseenthisskeleton]

Morning!

Is it cool to ask how the boi’s with animals would respond to having a S/O who is (kinda scarily) good with animals like you could swear this “tiny” human is using magic ?

E.g. cows in fields just mooing as they follow after S/O or horses acting like huge puppies?

(imagine doomfanger greeting S/O first once before Pap! Or being unable to see mafiafell sans’ S/O at first due to being under a very loving dogpile )

Just thought I’d share this idea! 🌼

Undertale Sans - He's a bit surprised since his parrot is very territorial, but he assumed he just likes you for some reason? He's pretty sure he read it could happen sometimes, meaning they're feeling well in their environment or something. It's good for him.

Undertale Papyrus - His dog loves everyone so he's not too surprised Sure, it gets annoying when his dog pushes him off the couch to cuddle with you, but he can manage a little frustration.

Underswap Papyrus - You did that trend where you two run in different directions to see who your dogs are following. He's not heartbroken or anything seeing his three dogs run to you. He's just going to lie there. Alone. Looking like a kicked desperate puppy.

Underfell Papyrus - He gasps, offended, as Doomfanger chooses your lap to sleep on in front of the TV. He snatches the cat from your knees, but Doomfanger claws him and returns to your lap. Edge is so upset now and thinks his cat hates him because he did something wrong. He's going to sleep. You find him pouting in his bed under three blankets, so sad lol.

Horrortale Sans - You two are Disney princesses. All the animals are following you around the farm. Oak is so used to him it didn't hit him you have the same power on animals he has. Just a normal day at the farm.

Horrortale Papyrus - He was about to scold his brother as he saw all the animals are following him... But there's only you??? He gasps. No way you're having the same curse his brother has! Please, he just want a normal day at work. Is it too hard to ask?

Swapfell Papyrus - He's mad because you blew up his hiding spot for the wild raccoons he's hiding in his room. Now not only Nox wants them out, but he's dragging you on a leash in the whole house to see if there are other hidden pets around. Rus promises you he will get his revenge.

Fellswap Gold Papyrus - So. You were on a car trip and some cows escaped to see you. The problem is that Coffee now insists they are your cows and that you should bring them home, and he's very determined to push one in the car. You're not sure how to stop him. The poor cow is already half inside and he looks so happy... Guess you have a cow now.

Dancefell Sans - He's crying and screaming for help, as a bear interrupted your camping trip and decided to sleep on him to get closer to you. Why does it always happen to him? He hates animals! Please do something, he's going to die!

Farmtale Sans - He's quite in awe. No one could ever get close to his rescue horse because he's so scared of humans since he got abused. You tamed it in ten seconds. Uh. Maybe he could use your little power to help his rescues around. They could need that.

Farmtale Papyrus - He's so jealous he refuses to sit next to you. He wanted to show you the farm dogs, they all jump on you to sleep in a pile. When he tried to join, the dogs growled at him. Now he feels excluded and sad and mad and he's not going to talk to you for the rest of the day.

Mafiafell Sans - He's glad his dogs like you since they usually don't like strangers, but, uh... Maybe don't sleep with all of them in bed? He can't even find a place to lay down. Also, all the dogs are cuddling you, and he feels so lonely now, just staring at the ceiling. He's not upset, just disappointed. Also, you're going to lose the key of the house tomorrow and he will not hear you knocking at the door, which will force you to sleep outside.

Killer and Dustale Sans - Ok, now that's scary. Killer is staring at you in shock as Dune is lying on your lap, purring like hell and SMILING as you're petting his head. ... He wants to be pet too, and he's getting insanely jealous and mad now. You pet Killer's head, he flops in your lap as well. Wow, you didn't know your power could work on feral skeletons too. Weird.

[madrivervalleyicelandics]

TW pet loss

Big long reflection post under the cut. Wanted to say it all somewhere that doesn’t have a character limit.

We are about a year out from when we put our two mares diagnosed with ESPA to sleep. Ultimately losing them has caused me to really sit with & unpack the way I had allowed the judging & breed standards to impair, inform, & even BECOME my own judgement, even when they didn’t make sense or clashed with something I knew wasn’t right. I think we all need to become more honest about the root of our sports & traditions, & redefine our ideas of “correctness” not based off of historical trends but the best & most current research we have access to.

I liked Skvísa from the start because she was hypermobile & that made her talented & easy to prepare for sport. Bottom line. Hypermobility wins, the standard calls it correct & rewards it, & I followed & believed in the standard. I didn’t see her hypermobility for what it was until recently. I saw it as talent, suppleness, flexibility.

If I hadn’t bred her, she’d have lived an almost normal lifespan, which is true of many ESPA horses. She always had some sensitivity & required a lot of careful stabilizing training to stay balanced with a rider (particularly to keep her trot & avoid cross-canter), but she would have more or less been okay for the normal lifespan of a horse. Her fetlocks might have dropped in her late teens, she might have developed an unusual propensity for eye ulcers or colics or whatever but if I hadn’t - twice! - allowed her body to undergo 11 months of relaxin & weight gain followed by a year+ of pasture time afterwards, she’d have lived a more or less normal life, & I can almost guarantee she’d have retired undiagnosed & whatever eventually killed her wouldn’t have prompted us to make the connection & diagnose her.

She only got diagnosed because for whatever reason her kids expressed this hereditary disease to a much more extreme degree, & with a much faster progression. Síríus was incompatible with life because his larynx lacked integrity & stuck together when he flexed his neck, blocking his airway. His older sister, Sylgja, seemed normal at birth but presented with extreme nerve impingements as she grew, & was crippled & experiencing whole-body pain episodes by 5. I got to see her get better under my stabilizing training & then watch her completely fall apart worse than before & realize that it was my responsibility, entirely, from her conception right down to the bitter, early end.

What happened to these horses is 100% my responsibility & my fault, the result of choices I made. But I made those choices based on the education I received regarding what “correctness” is & looks like - a standard I was then very heavily reinforced for riding & training towards.

Since my mares’ deaths, I’ve learned about enough other Icelandic horses with this disease, & talked to enough people who fully don’t care & have no intention to change anything that I’ve all but completely removed myself from the breed community. I won’t be told this was an isolated or unlucky problem for me specifically when I know that I’m not alone. I won’t continue to use language that dances around what we’re doing when we endlessly rehab the same problems over & over again - horses losing trot, losing canter, getting pacey, crests falling over, etc etc etc. I can’t see the sense in continuing to chase an “outline” that requires inappropriate poll/AO compression & a degree of leg action that does not make sense to the animal’s anatomy, with no research to support these practices and so MUCH research indicating that this runs counter to welfare, while mindlessly parroting the standards & citing them as the reason why X hypermobile hyperflexed example is “correct.” It’s a feedback loop. We’re saying that the horse is correct if he scores high, but he scores high because he’s correct.

It makes no sense. It’s rooted in nothing. The standard was written to fit the trends - it’s not as if science informed the standard & THEN the sport followed. No! The sport came first. That’s true of Icelandic horses, true of saddleseat, Tennessee walkers, hell - it’s true of competitive dressage. Honestly? It’s true of classical dressage, too! We are riding to standards set by a bunch of dudes from a very long time ago based off of what they thought 1. Looked cool & 2. Felt cool to ride, with NONE of the knowledge we currently have about training science, biomechanics, equine behavior, etc. As recently as the 1970s, scientists were still claiming animals couldn’t feel pain. Think about how that mentality informed horse training!!

We retrofitted rules to match & reward what was already winning, in these early iterations of sport. We continue to do mental & linguistic gymnastics to maintain this status quo with every new study that emerges. We know SO MUCH MORE now. We have progressed rapidly in the last century, last 50 years especially. Equestrian sports NEED an update. The onus can’t just be on the riders to find ways to meet the standards using better, more evidence-based techniques. The sport standards themselves have to change to fit what we KNOW now.

Anyway. Not all hypermobility is ESPA, obviously, and many ESPA horses can live long, relatively okay lives with careful management - if they’re diagnosed and the owners know & can stop riding them & certainly not breed them. It’s worth learning how to manage hypermobility, & how to use certain training techniques to help stabilize hypermobile horses, because the world is now absolutely freaking flooded with them. But until we stop rewarding it so heavily, we won’t stop selecting for it, & as I learned the hard way - when you’re breeding hypermobile animals, you can’t control how that hypermobility expresses itself down the line. AND - ESPA isn’t the only disease or injury associated with selecting for hypermobility.

Bottom line: No horse deserves what happened to Sylgja, in particular. She suffered, and longer than she should have because it took me so long to figure out what was wrong.

Because of this experience with them, my life looks completely different than it did a year ago, & in my opinion every single change is very much for the better. Identifying and learning to manage my own hypermobility & connective tissue weirdness has been a piece of that puzzle. I owe very much to those mares, but that is not what horses are here for. They do not exist to suffer so that we can learn about ourselves.

I considered what it would look like to step away from horsekeeping entirely, & in the heaviest months of grief that felt extremely attractive. But where I landed is to recommit myself to understanding their minds & bodies, be a student again (the trauma-informed certification being the first step of that!) & reconnect with my own horses more as pets, & less through sport. Beyond that, I really can’t say what my future with horses holds.

Right now I’m focusing on healing & supporting my own body, & building up other areas of my life. My own horses are not in the back seat, but they’re on this journey alongside me, rather than BEING my journey. I think it’s the amount of distance & clarity I need from the various pressures & stressors of The Sport to avoid falling back into the cycles that blinded me to Skvísa’s dysfunction to begin with.

I hope that when all is said & done, I emerge from all this grief & shifting to find that I am a better horseman than I was when they left me. Time will tell.

But I can’t let a year go by without acknowledging it. They died about a year ago. It was the worst experience of my life, from Síríus’ birth to Sylgja & Skvísa’s last breaths. I miss them daily. I feel the weight of my responsibility for them & their pain always, & I always will.

And if I haven’t said it publicly, I am so, so sorry for what happened to them.

[lostcauses-noregrets]

By Rafael Motamayor, New York Times, Nov. 5, 2023

On Saturday, the final episode of the anime adaptation of Hajime Isayama’s “Attack on Titan” premiered on Crunchyroll and Hulu, ending an epic tale that started back in 2013.

Like the manga, which ran from 2009 to 2021, the anime was an instant hit, becoming one of the defining shows of the modern anime era, with spinoffs, live-action and video game adaptations, and even a comic book crossover with Marvel’s “Spider-Man” and “Avengers” titles.

Since the fourth and final season started airing in 2020, “Attack on Titan” has been one of the most popular shows on the internet — episodes have routinely trended on social media, streaming servers have occasionally crashed, the opening theme song became a rare anime song to hit the U.S. Billboard charts. Parrot Analytics said it was the most “in-demand” show in the world in 2021, a metric based on analysis of streaming, social media, search and other online behaviors. The manga has continued to be popular as well, selling over 120 million copies worldwide, and several of the published volumes have charted on the New York Times graphic novels and manga best-seller list.

What started as a thrilling yet relatively simple tale of a young boy seeking revenge against the giant humanoid monsters that ate his mother quickly evolved into a thought-provoking war epic. The tonal shift in “Attack on Titan” also came with one of the biggest heel-turns in modern anime, with the protagonist, Eren Jaeger, devolving into a radicalized monster threatening worldwide genocide.

Since the manga ended in 2021, there has been plenty of speculation and debate over Eren’s antagonistic turn and what the story’s ending means. Ahead of the release of the final episode, the manga creator Hajime Isayama, speaking through an interpreter, David Higbee, talks about the restrictive nature of writing and the story’s dark ending. These are edited excerpts from the interview.

The manga ended a couple of years ago, and the anime is just finishing now. How do you feel about the story coming to an end?

For this anime to be made and for that to go beyond the borders of Japan and to reach a worldwide audience is something that’s been a very happy occurrence for me. In a sense, “Attack on Titan” has connected me to the world, and that’s something that I’m very glad happened.

How much of the ending from the manga did you have in mind when you first began writing “Attack on Titan”? And how much did it change along the way?

That was pretty much there from the beginning, the story that starts with the victim who then goes through this story and becomes the aggressor. That is something I had in mind right from the get-go. Along the way, certain aspects of the story didn’t go as expected, and I adapted and fleshed out certain aspects. But I would say the ending of the story didn’t change much

There’s a much-talked-about scene where Armin, who is struggling with Eren’s turn into a mass murderer, seems to thank him for his actions. Can you talk about the meaning behind that conversation?

My thinking there wasn’t really that Armin was trying to push Eren away for the sake of justice or whatnot. It was more that he wanted to, in a sense, take joint responsibility. He wanted to become an accomplice. In order to become an accomplice, Armin had to make sure that he used very strong wording so that he could take those sins upon himself. And so that was the intent behind it.

You have a scene where Eren apologizes to a kid for the carnage he’s going to commit and says he was disappointed in the world he saw beyond the walls. What does that say about his motivation?

I think that refers to the fact that Eren was dreaming of going to this world outside of the walls where there was nobody and there was nothing. There was an excitement about this world that was just empty, a clean slate. I don’t really know whether that’s a good or a bad thing, and I don’t really know why that was the ideal that I set up for Eren as a part of this story. But what I can say is that, when he does get across the wall at that point, he says he sees that the world is really not that different from what’s within the walls in the world that he already knows. I believe that’s probably the disappointment that I’m referring to in that specific scene.

Eren says in the final episode of the anime that he had no choice but to follow the future that he saw, that he was powerless against the powers of the Founding Titan. Armin even asks if he’s really free. Was he telling the truth or do you see this as him telling an excuse?

So the truth is the situation with Eren actually overlaps in a certain sense with my own story with this manga. When I first started this series, I was worried that it would probably be canceled. It was a work that no one knew about. But I had already started the story with the ending in mind. And the story ended up being read and watched by an incredible number of people, and it led to me being given a huge power that I didn’t quite feel comfortable with.

It would have been nice if I could have changed the ending. Writing manga is supposed to be freeing. But if I was completely free, then I should have been able to change the ending. I could have changed it and said I wanted to go in a different direction. But the fact is that I was tied down to what I had originally envisioned when I was young. And so, manga became a very restrictive art form for me, similar to how the massive powers that Eren acquired ended up restricting him.

You have been involved in the anime production for a little while, supervising the adaptation’s storyboards, and have been known for asking for changes to the story in the adaptation. Did you personally ask for anything for the final episode?

Yes. Absolutely. I checked the script, but the main thing was the storyboards. There were different things I suggested. When it comes down to it, it’s really the role of the production to make those decisions. But I wanted to at least give my input so that they could take those into account when they were making the final decisions.

The manga ends with you showing the future of Paradis and sort of the cycle of war continuing. Is there no end to the conflict and the cycle you present in the story?

I guess there could have been an ending where it was a happy ending and the war ended and everything was fine and dandy. I guess that could have been possible. At the same time, the end of fighting and the end of contention itself kind of seems hokey. It kind of seems like it’s not even believable. It’s just not plausible in the world we’re living in right now. And so, sadly, I had to give up on that kind of happy ending.

[New York Times, 5 November 2023]

[jetra4ivor]

I saw a video talking about why Minecraft seems to have stagnated a bit lately and doesn’t have the same appeal as it once did. It talked about the usual complaints, such as inventory bloat, new blocks, structures, quality of life advancements… but the one aspect I didn’t see them talking about was ABSTRACTION.

I think that as Minecraft has been pushed closer towards reality, we’ve lost the inherent FEAR that comes from the abstract in the old video games Minecraft was emulating its style from.

Maybe it’s because I grew up with Atari as my first console, but there was a level of unnerving fear that was created through the hardware limitations and graphics during that era. Because everything was so abstracted, you let your imagination fill in the blanks. This blocky room with goofy eyeballs became a darkly lit haunted house where monsters could appear around every corner.

And Minecraft is clearly going for this level of abstraction. The entire world is just low resolution pixelated blocks, but there’s JUST enough definition that if you squint your eyes the world seems to mimic our own. It produces an uncanny valley effect that, coupled with survival elements, makes the game absolutely TERRIFYING at times.

And a perfect example of this is the creeper. What a horrifying monster! But the details of what it actually is are obscured through abstraction and pixel limitations. What exactly IS the creeper made of? Some people have interpreted the green blotches to be leaves, others see a wrinkly leather-like texture, others see fur. How do you interpret that grimace? Is is a permanent scowl? A sad mourning? There’s JUST enough detail to make the creature recognizable, but not enough detail to make it perfectly clear to everyone what it’s made of. That’s terrifying!

That so many artists can have such wildly different interpretations of the creeper is a testament to its intentionally unnerving design.

But over the years those terrifying edges have been smoothed out. Textures have been refined to be less garish and harsh. New more recognizable animals have been added. A parrot, for example, looks like a parrot. And just with the colors alone you can tell what kind of parrot it’s meant to be. There no ambiguity. No unsettling interpretation.

And even the enviroment has been smoothed out and changed to reflect reality.

So I think that the reason Minecraft today doesn’t feel like Minecraft of 10 years ago is because too much emphasis has been placed on mimicking reality. Even in the more recent additions these things have real world equivalence which reduce the inherent terror and unease that abstracted environments would evoke. The Nether today is far less scary than the Nether of 10 years ago, even if it’s still as dangerous.

There’s just something really unsettling about a perfectly square house in high contrast mossy cobblestone that you won’t get from a village of friendly NPC’s bathed in soft ambient lighting, you know?

I genuinely believe that Minecraft has leaned too far into realism. If they want people to keep playing longer, it’s not to add MORE structures, it’s to add back in some of the abstracted nature of the original game. Don’t make things inherently clear what they are. Allow people to interpret things in different ways. Stop trying to emulate realistic environments when the trees you cut down don’t even fall over. This is Minecraft! Minecraft is meant to be WEIRD and CREEPY almost like an alien’s failed interpretation of our word.

[sealixirfairytales]

So… He's from our world, around the victorian area… or so it seems.

Bram is around 16 or 19, nobody is sure of his age. He's actually born in twisted Wonderland and more importantly, in the Island of Woe, as his parents are both STYX's scientists.

But as a baby, only a month old, his parents remarked he seemed to absorb blot around him, like if he was a human magistone. Scared, they sealed any magic in him through some experiment for some time before throwing him into a random experimental portal because even with sealed magic, he was absorbing blot, just slower. Bram appeared in our world, right into the sea. (reason why he absorbe blot at the very end of this post)

But Bram actually is blessed with an incredible luck so as a little baby of barely 6 months, he survived by miracle and ended up on a flourished jungle island, untouched by humans.

He have been found by a female tiger. The "ruler" of the island, kind off. Thanks to his luck blessing, she decided to adopt him instead of eating him. So she raised him.

Bram is then totally wild and never saw another human. The closest were the monkeys… but as "a tiger" he just ate them. Bram's "father" didn't wanted him and tried to eat him, but his mother killed him to protect her cub. The large scar on his torso is due to his "father" attack.

Of course lots of other accidents. The bite on his thigh is from a crocodile. The large scar on his calf is because he felt and got this place pierced by a branche. He have cuts, bites and scratches kind of everywhere.

He also have a dark "scar" in his back, but it's actually the seal of his magic.

Bram love pretty colors and since he have seen parrots decorating their plumage with leaves or other feathers, he's doing the same by putting pretty flowers in his hairs. He loves flowers. DO NOT touch his flowers. He will bite.

Also, of course, he live completely naked and walking on all four

When he was around 11, his mom died. She wasn't killed. She was just already 17 (tigers lives usually between 10 and 15 years old, some rare case have been observed where they lived up to 26) So Bram lived alone since.

And suddenly… the mirror summoned him in another world…or more like back to his original world…

here come the day he's summoned to Twisted wonderland.

No need to say, he was shocked.

Need to know, in his head, he is a tiger. His mother just said he's "a little different" but he's "still a tiger".

So, I base it more like the manga for his arrival. He get out of the coffin when everyone is already here. And by himself. And without the ceremonial robe. So in his case, he's still naked.

I think you can imagine, when he woke up locked in a box, he panicked, and hit and struggled until he managed to open the lid of the coffin. When he see all the students and staff around him -human- he step back and hiss… yep, he will just act like a cat… more dangerous.

The staff try to calm him but nothing work. Until, recognizing how he act, Trein have the good idea to send Lucius. Bram can talk to animal. Howver, the animal language the mages use to talk to animal too don't work with Bram.

So thanks to Lucius, they learn that the naked kid in front of them think he's a tiger because he have been raised by one. After some tribulation, seing all the scars and how he act, the staff refuse to just send him back (and the mirror say he can't, anyway). Crewel decide to adopt him. And since I ship crewel and Crowley, Crowley adopt him too.

With Lucius help they slowly makes him understand they're not going to hurt him and Crewel manage to get him and carry him. Bram snuggle into his coat, reminding him of his mother fur, and purr. Lucius translate, saying the purr correspond to "mom" and Crewel just accept his fate XD

When he sees Grim, Bram try to hunt him, even catch him in his mouth XD Thanks the seven, the staff manage to makes him let go. Sam's little shadow friend bring a whole ham for Bram instead.

So they try to dress him… have you tried to dress a cat? No need to say, they can't. They just managed to pass him a boxer and a shirt barely buttoned. (the image)

Of course he also can't talk, he growl and hiss. First thing he will try to say will be his name, like "brrrr…. rraa… bbrrmmm… nrrr…. bbraaam".

Slowly, he start saying some words and even try to walk on two legs. then, you know the story… with some changes, of course. Crowley is "Da" and Crewel is "Ma"

About the overblots…. well he just jump on the phantom and bite it. And that's what he do in every fight, tiger style XD

Another thing… he will keep picking flower and put it im his hair but also try to put it in others hair. It's his love language.

~~~~

Now, about the fact he absorbe blot. It's due to his signature spell. I got that idea with a dream about another MC (Xia, from my horror short story "The orphanage) but it fit Bram too.

So here is his signature spell :

"From the shadows to my call, gather and empower my rise; Abyssal Maw!"

"Abyssal Maw" makes him enter into a controlled overblot, where he still have his mind clear and can command the phantom (see the phantom as the Horned king). Due to that, instead of creating blot when he use magic, he is using blot. He absorbe blot around him because for him blot is like a fuel, not a waste. Since it was way too OP (I mean… most of signature spell are kind of OP, did you see Malleus'??) I had to makes some adjustement compared to the original dream.

So, when he don't get enough blot, he will feel weak and tired. Like if you haven't eat or sleep for days. And there is also a problem if he absorb too much.

Nope, he won't enter into a real overblot if he absorbe too much blot… but he will end up in a drunken-like stat. Will be really cuddle and completely out. Not able to think or react, dizzy and will totally faint after a while. That can be really dangerous if he's into a battle.

Of course he will be able later to control his blot absorption, but that will take time. And obviously, he absorbe a lot of blot during the other's overblot. Slowly, because his magic is sealed.

But all this is only if they find a way to break the seal.