alxblack17

[alxblack17]

For the headcannon thing: Jason Todd

NGL, the challenge here is to not make all of them totally angsty, because I very much want to. My poor, poor boy.

Headcanon A:  realistic

Jason is quick to point out that he doesn’t rely on luxury the way the others seem to. Bruce, Tim, and Damian were born into the upper echelons of society, and while Dick’s origins might have begun humbly, he’s had plenty of time to get used to the finer things in life. Jason, on the other hand, grew up on the darkest, dirtiest streets in all of Gotham and is capable of thriving wherever he’s planted.

However, that does not mean he buys into Bruce’s self-flagellating asceticism. Jason Todd loves simple comforts. He loves soft things. His drawers are full with worn-to-perfection t-shirts, cashmere sweaters, and thick socks. The thread count on his bed is the closest thing he has to approaching Brucian levels of luxury. The Pit sucked the heat out of him, leaving his extremities perpetually frigid and tingling on the edge of numbness, so his spaces are always draped in throws and a space heater sits unobtrusively in the corner. He likes to pick up books at the secondhand shop on the corner. He likes to make himself tea in his own matching tea set. He likes to keep his kitchen drawer stocked with those wafer cookies that are rolled into straws and filled with chocolate. He likes to keep a coaster always on hand.

Jason Todd might not always like himself. In fact, there are many days where he doesn’t like anyone, himself least of all. But he’s learning to love himself, and to be kind to himself. It’s a start.

Headcanon B: while it may not be realistic it is hilarious

Jason is notoriously difficult to frighten, unsettle, or gross out. However, he refuses to stay in the room when the movies Bambi or Jumanjii (1995) are playing, pimple popping videos make him gag, and he is secretly freaked out by the concept of the ocean. Not of going to the beach or wading in the ocean or anything like that, but the actual concept of a mostly unexplored body of water that covers most of the surface of the planet that could house eldritch beings and other untold horrors. (In retrospect, he may have been a little too young for that Jaws and Lake Placid binge weekend, and Lovecraft was definitely a bad idea.)

Headcanon C: heart-crushing and awful, but fun to inflict on friends

If you’d asked pre-Ethiopia Dick Grayson about his family, he would’ve said he had a dad, a grandfather, and a little brother.

If you’d asked pre-Ethiopia Jason Todd the same question, he would have said he was an only child.

Dick was Bruce’s son, yes. He was also a hotheaded, arrogant brat of a rich kid who did nothing but disrupt Jason’s life. It wasn’t that Jason didn’t get why Dick was pissed off about the Robin thing. He did. But Dick gave it up. He left, and Bruce offered Jason the mask. That wasn’t Jason’s fault.

And sure, it wasn’t like Dick was mean to Jason. He even tried to be nice, sort of. But Jason hated what Dick did to Bruce. He hated the way the Manor went all frigid and tense when Dick was around. He hated listening to them fight, screaming at each other the way Mom and Willis used to. (It wasn’t the same, but it felt too close.) He hated the way it changed Bruce for days afterward, shutting him down tight and making him impossible to read. He hated how off-kilter it made him feel. He hated how much it hurt Bruce.

When he came back, Red Hood hated Batman because Bruce had forgotten and replaced him. He hated the new Robin for being the replacement, nothing more. But he hated Nightwing for telling lies. They were never brothers.

Headcanon D: unrealistic, but I will disregard canon about it because I reject canon reality and substitute my own.

Jason’s the one who ends up with a bajillion kids, not Dick. Maybe Dick has kids, maybe he doesn’t. Jason’s the one who collects them.

It starts with one kid, some smart-mouth teen punk with too much attitude and too little meat on his bones. Jason would argue that he’s not Jason’s kid. There’s no adoption, no custody even. Just an unspoken promise that if he needs Jason, Jason’ll be there.

A lot of them are like that—no legal agreements, no custody arrangements, just the certainty that at least one person out there has their backs. Jason has a constellation of them scattered all across Gotham. High school seniors on the cusp of adulthood, awkward freshmen with more hormones than sense, coltish middle schoolers with outsized agony and crooked teeth, elementary schoolers with big attitudes and fiery minds, even toddlers with wide eyes and soft lisps.

Some only know him as Hood, but most know to call him Jay. They know which of his pants pockets usually holds candy, how to get ahold of him when they’re in a jam, and to step back and duck away when his eyes glow green, but not to be scared. His anger isn’t aimed at them. Never at them.

He’d die for them, and they’d do the same. The day he realizes that is the scariest moment of Jason’s life.

Drop me an ask with a character name and an indication that it’s for the headcanon meme, and I’ll give you four head canons following the above four prompts! Yes, you can give me a character I’ve already done if you want more about that person.

And you can follow all my answers at the tag “headcanon time”.

[alxblack17]

I recently watched a video of a pair of Sandhill Cranes raising a Canada Gosling, and it seems that it isn't the first example of it in the last few years. Are cranes like penguins where they will steal eggs/hatchlings if they had an unsuccessful breeding season, or is there some other reason that they 'adopt' baby geese?

If you follow enough birding groups in Sandhill crane territory, you’ll eventually see someone post a baby duckling or goose that is following around a pair of cranes. It’s not common, but it happens enough to be a thing!

Sandhill cranes don’t seem to steal babies, but they have an extremely strong parenting instinct. If they find a baby that needs taking care of, you can bet they’re going to take damn good care of it. There are documented cases of Sandhill cranes adopting unrelated crane chicks as well as geese and domestic ducks. They just love babies. There has even been some research into using Sandhill cranes as foster parents for endangered whooping cranes in order to re-establish a non migrating population of the latter. Sandhill cranes are super parents!

[alxblack17]

From the article:

In a groundbreaking effort, a team of conservation partners froze, thawed, and settled larval giant pink stars (Pisaster brevispinus) into juveniles, the first time this process has been completed with a species of sea star. This success serves as a model for utilizing frozen larvae as a conservation tool for sea star recovery, including the critically endangered sunflower sea star (Pycnopodia helianthoides). This first-of-its-kind achievement was the result of significant collaborative efforts from numerous partner institutions. Adult giant pink stars were spawned and their gametes cross-fertilized by scientists at the Aquarium of the Pacific, resulting in thousands of viable larvae. These larvae were cryopreserved in San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance’s Frozen Zoo® by the organization’s reproductive sciences team, with the assistance of protocols developed by partners at Omaha’s Henry Doorly Zoo and Aquarium. The frozen larvae were transferred to conservation nonprofit Sunflower Star Laboratory, where they were thawed, grown through their larval stage, and settled into juvenile sea stars.

This is the kind of conservation breakthrough that could potentially benefit many species that have a larval stage of development, and that would not have been possible all that long ago. The applications for the transport of endangered aquatic larvae to release sites or even to potentially cryopreserve larvae of a species that is going extinct until its habitat can be restored in the future are enormous.

[alxblack17]

Citizen science opportunity!

Project Phoenix has started for the year! It's a simple 10 minute a week survey, logging bird behavior and how it may be affected by wildfire. They specifically are looking for volunteers from California, Oregon, and Washington.

You can read some more about it here!

And sign up and read even more about it here!

@todaysbird

[alxblack17]

I'm going to connect some dots

Republicans are building a concentration camp in the Everglades, with plans to build more in other states.

They are "deputizing" militia lunatics and sending them out to terrorize our communities.

They just gave ICE a bigger budget than the USMC. FORTY BILLION DOLLARS.

They keep talking about deporting people who are American citizens, people who have done nothing wrong, who have broken no laws. In some cases, they've already done that. They've talked about suspending habeas corpus and declaring martial law.

They are telling us, in word and in deed, that they are turning their rage and violence directly onto American citizens. RIght now, they are laser focused on terrorizing immigrant communities, but this will not stop with the communities they are terrorizing right now. They are going to go after journalists, professors, influencers who don't fall into line, and more.

They are building a police state, in plain sight, and they are telling us exactly what they are going to do when they are done.

[alxblack17]

Whenever anyone writes Bruce showing up to school cause one of the kids got in a fight or some other random occurrence there tends to be a quick oh ok and then he takes them into the car to get ice cream.

No Bruce Wayne never in his life has believed his children did anything wrong.

You think his son punched a child?

Do you have it on videotape? Well then it didn't fucking happen.

His children can be guilty as sin, literally killed another child in class. Bruce does not give a fuck his kid is innocent, now once they get in the car that might change depending on the situation.

But damn right he's defending that kid to every single other adult.

It's not just at school. Or over the age of 18.

Superman once made a comment about Jason's kill count after he's big strong and every bit as tall as Bruce.

"Excuse me what proof do you have?"

"Bruce the duffle bag, you told me..."

"I'm sorry maybe, I just misheard what exactly did you imply about my son!"

Bruce is the parent that when the cops come to the door they better have a fucking warrant.

He has a team of attorneys, and a billion dollars fucking try him.

Call him from the police station. He will have badges.

You think the man with more money and power than god is letting someone else hold his children accountable.

"Who the fuck do you think you are Batman?"

[alxblack17]

I thought y'all might like to see Niagara Falls lit up for Pride.

Hope you had a good one!

[alxblack17]

🦉 these prints will be up on my shop soon :)

[alxblack17]

[alxblack17]

I don't really define one shot by word count, but by content. To me a one shot is more limited in scope and covers a single idea or plot point.

As far as chapter go, I only start wanting chapter when it starts getting fairly long, like more than 25,000-50,000 words. But that's really just to make it easier to find my place if the decides to reload to the beginning.

[alxblack17]

dapper / disheveled

[alxblack17]

[alxblack17]

[alxblack17]

[Image ID: The Destiel confession meme edited so that Dean answers 'They might have found the cause and cure of long COVID'. /End ID]

source link

[Image ID: A screenshot of a post by CarolAnn Barrows. It reads:

"Japanese researchers have found a possible explanation for long COVID. They discovered that small fragments of the coronavirus's genetic material can remain deep behind the nose, in an area called the epipharynx, for at least six months after infection. These viral remnants irritate the immune system and may cause fatigue, coughing, dizziness, and "brain fog." The researchers used an old Japanese treatment called epipharyngeal abrasive therapy (EAT), where the area is swabbed once a week with a cotton swab dipped in 1% zinc chloride solution. After three months, the patients showed:

- significantly fewer viral remnants

- lower levels of inflammatory substances

- noticeably reduced symptoms

The treatment appears to both remove the lingering virus and calm the inflammation. A larger clinical trial is now underway in Japan to confirm the results. This discovery could lead to more targeted treatments that address the root cause of long COVID symptoms instead of merely managing them."

/End ID]

[alxblack17]

MORE

MORE

[alxblack17]

Women in Shakespeare

[alxblack17]

35. long showers

"Hey Kiki," Clint said. He'd known it was her before he'd opened the door - somehow even her knock was efficient.

There'd been a little grumbling when he'd hired her on as Super - Garett had been a huge bear of a man, a believer in the power of a single screwdriver, a carrier of groceries for all the little old ladies man could wish. Kiki was short, and Kiki had huge eyes like a Disney character, and Kiki had the hair-trigger temper of the constantly underestimated. She had a multi-tool hanging from her belt. She had a hand cart. She lifted from the knees.

"Clint, either your meter's lying to me, or your new roommate is taking showers long enough to recreate the Biblical fuckin' flood."

Clint let out a long breath.

"Look," he said. It started the sentence strong, suggested you had something to say, and Clint was hoping really hard that that something would come to him. "He's got - he's got issues with cold, okay. Showers warm him up."

"Well the whole damn building is gonna have issues with cold if he keeps using up all the damned hot water." Kiki eyed him, and Clint could feel himself flush. "Unless it's both of you using - "

"I wish," Clint said, idiot-fast, and the flush turned the bright red of a warning beacon. "I mean - "

"Hey, Clint?"

Bucky's soft voice came from way too close behind him, and Clint closed his eyes, resigned, though not so quickly that he didn't see Kiki's eyes widen, her mouth drop open.

"Yeah, Buck?" Clint turned with the slow inevitability of doom, and - yeah, that was Bucky at his most impossibly beautiful, low-slung sweatpants that outlined every goddamn thing, and nothing else aside from the towel slung around his neck. Bucky tucked his long hair behind his ear, and flashed Kiki a lightning strike of a grin.

Clint couldn't have suppressed the whimper if it killed him.

"I'm gonna take a shower," Bucky said. Behind Clint, in another world, Kiki let out an annoyed snort.

"Uh-huh," Clint said.

Bucky smiled - and this one wasn't a lightning strike. This one was a fire catching from embers, slowly growing to unbearable heat.

"You wanna come with?"

Clint swallowed.

Clint turned.

"Kiki, I will buy the building the best fucking boiler money can buy but you have to leave immediately I'm sorry," he said, all in one breath, and Bucky's quiet laughter from behind him was the best sound he had ever heard.