#Sirens & Shelter

[ranticore]

OH YEAH what are avarage life expectancies for sirenians?

Probably what you'd expect! For the sake of not hurting my head, these are earth years. The zeta are the shortest-lived, growing old around 60-70. Then it's the landstrider harpies with an average lifespan of 80 (no coincidence that the terrestrial ones have the shortest lifespans). then any given harpy hybrid around 100ish, the same as the average human life expectancy at the time of settling.

Shortwings and longwings actually have the same longevity with an expectancy of 120ish years, but shortwings become markedly elderly much sooner than longwings and usually lose their ability to fly in their 80s. Flying is much easier for longwings, and a very elderly longwing can fly right up til they die of old age, though by then they won't be flapping, only active gliding like an albatross.

Selkies can expect to live about 130 years if nothing goes wrong. The sea is a dangerous place to live and a high infant mortality tends to drag the average down, but if they survive adolescence their chances of living til old age shoot up.

Phocids are the biggest but also the slowest growing and they don't even reach their full length until they're 30-35 years old, or older in some cases (esp. polar individuals). They have a similar issue with infant mortality skewing averages but many villages' all-bearers, the eldest and most experienced phocids who run the villages, can be over 200 years old. Just good luck getting there

[thelastspeecher]

eregyrn-falls replied to your post: “I've been watching a lot of tornado related...”

tornadoes are something that terrified me as a little kid, no doubt due to television. (i can remember a nightmare from early childhood about a tornado.) i grew up in eastern PA, where at the time we didn't have any. so it was the IDEA of them that terrified me. honestly, it still does. i would very very VERY much prefer never to live in a place that gets them with any regularity.

​i realize they're old hat for you, and that's true for anyone who lives with a natural phenomenon. you come to respect it, rather than be terrified of it. but for me, i can't get past the suddenness of them. the fact that they can strike in the middle of the night when you might have almost no warning at all. while they aren't completely unpredictable (obviously there are observable weather fronts and stuff), to me, they feel that way.

the natural disasters that i can deal with are hurricanes, and blizzards. both of those are things you see coming for DAYS. you can get out ahead of them. you can take steps to protect your house and your pets and yourself. (i mean, both of those in theory, assuming you have the means and the financial situation.) earthquakes and tornadoes are too sudden for me and that's why they scare me.

oh you're not the only one who's had a tornado nightmare! one of the worst nightmares I've had in my entire life was a tornado nightmare!

I think that what allows me to continue living in a tornado-prone area despite my general anxiety over like, idk, life, is two things: 1) tornado predictions give a crazy amount of warning nowadays, and 2) I live in a tornado-prone area, I've had a few close calls, but it's not like I live in Moore, Oklahoma lmao.

most tornado warnings aren't even that a tornado has been spotted by someone or confirmed by radar. most of them are "radar indicated rotation", meaning that a thunderstorm with a rotating cloud has been detected on radar. which doesn't mean tornado. it does mean a storm capable of a tornado and more likely to produce one, but it doesn't mean a tornado. or even a funnel cloud!

very VERY rarely are people caught off guard by a tornado anymore. FEMA says the average amount of time between a tornado warning being issued and the tornado or storm striking the area is 10 to 15 minutes. plenty of time to grab your emergency kit and go to your safe place. we have tornado watches if the weather is favorable and often know days in advance whether we'll be hit by weather conducive for tornadogenesis.

and even when we don't know in advance, like I said, we still have plenty of warning! about a week ago, I woke up to sirens, then ten minutes later, heard them again. which I knew likely meant a tornado warning had been issued (the first time, I checked my phone and saw it was severe thunderstorm and just rolled over to sleep some more lol). and before I could check, my phone went off, blaring the same alarm as an Amber Alert. which I knew 100% meant tornado warning. and it was. my roommate and I had time to use the bathroom, grab the dogs and emergency bag, and even take the dogs outside really quick to pee before the storm hit us! and we didn't have a tornado watch in effect. there weren't supposed to be conditions for tornadoes that morning.

and like I said, I don't live in Moore. if I did, I wouldn't even DREAM of living somewhere without a basement. as it is, I fucking hate that my best option is a hallway on the first floor. we've gotten tornadoes before. some have gotten close to me. one literally lifted over a building I was in. but thankfully, we're not as prone as other locations in my state; the storms tend to lose some steam by the time they reach here. and the tornadoes that do spawn tend to be lower level, again, because of the storms losing steam by the time they get here.

I know a lot about the science of tornadoes and grew up in Tornado Alley (or adjacent, depending on what graphic you use), so I know that our current methods are so flipping good at protecting us. we DO have warning. not as much as for a hurricane, but generally speaking, enough to, like I said, use the bathroom and grab the pets. earthquakes...yeah those don't typically give much warning, but that's something scientists are working on. buildings in earthquake-prone areas are built to withstand them (much like many buildings in tornado-prone areas are built to withstand severe storms), and people grow up learning what to do in an earthquake. (which is find a table to hide under, essentially, btw.)

no, what scares ME the most are wildfires.

you're flat-out fucked over by those.

[clonerightsagenda]

That w359 post is why the only non-Hephaestus AU I've posted about was the community college employees one because working at a community college is roughly equivalent to working on a crumbling space station in terms of pressure cooker environments that bond you through trauma. Yesterday I got calls and texts that there was a tornado but the college never turned the interior alert system on. Then an hour later I was on lunch break and the water stopped working because they'd turned it off to do a test at 11:30. Then two hours after that we lost internet for 30 minutes. The facilities guy told us he personally won't drink the water but refused to elaborate.

[wendelin-utt]

I'm super sad... I couldn't go and submit this piece of art to @aliceiannalove. This is the MC for Sheltered Waves! I asked what type of mer they were... mainly so I could make this piece. I was drawing another mer, and wanted to draw this one as well.

[pseudospectre]

Sorry to personal post of the spooky blog, but I'm so fucking worried about my cat. My beautiful Siren, she who twimsts, is deteriorating and I don't think there's anything left I can do. The vet says there's nothing more she can check, she can tell something is wrong but we have not been able to determine what. The next step is thousands of dollars at a more advanced teaching clinic almost four hours away, and I cannot afford to do that. Her only diagnoses so far are asthma (under control) and a chronic respiratory infection that is also under control. Her blood work shows absolutely nothing out of the ordinary except for a slightly elevated value (globulin? I don't remember exactly) that the vet says indicates inflammation somewhere but she can't find where. And Siren has lost so much weight. She's skin and bones even though she's still eating more or less normally. She's never liked wet food.or treats of any kind, I've offered her everything under the sun from the first day she came to me so that doesn't help the situation.

It feels like I'm just letting her slowly starve to death, and I don't know what to do. I don't want to force feed her and it probably wouldn't help anyway. She's only 8, I only adopted her a year ago, it's not fucking fair. Based on what I've looked into, my fear is lymphoma. Even if I took her to that clinic, my vet guessed I'd be looking at somewhere in the 2.5-3k range not counting having to take off work for it, and either they don't find anything either and I've spent all than and more for no gain, or they confirm the problem is my fear in which case I can't afford the treatment and it would probably only buy her 6 months to a year anyway.

I'm at the end of my rope and I feel like I failed her

[wormonastringtheory]

Rest in peace to my favorite Bisexual Legend ❤️

[notetaeker]

Telltale disparities in an apartheid state

[daz4i]

not having a panic attack rn (lying)

[actuallyitsstar]

ok @ god i know it might seem real fuckin funny rn. but u better NOT send a real life tornado to my home rn i literally do NOT have time for it thanks

[parkeryangs]

did u rly have a summer in ok without at least one tornado (no)

[todaviia]

.

[pussyvalkyrie]

caved to curiosity from seeing mutuals blogging about stormlight archives so i gave it whirl and lemme tell you. finishing The Way of Kings as a massive storm system wrecked half my state was a TRIP last night. the potent cocktail of finishing an excellent book with all the TWISTS and DRAMA as the tornado sirens go off and the t-t-t-t-trauma response kicks in? the emotional exhaustion gave me one of the best sleeps of my LIFE. anyways hoping to go grab book 2 from the library today if they have power

[v1-kisser]

I love storms man I always get so sad when they start moving away... Nooooooo girl... stay with me... I miss you already </3

[colorisbyshe]

This post is just making me think of the actually very sloppy yet SO well done use of parallels in Naruto.

Like, the parallels in Naruto are always, always heavy handed.

Naruto is Jiraiya. Sasuke is Orochimaru. Sakura is Tsunade.

Naruto is Hashimada. Naruto is Madara.

In that one scene, Naruto is Haku. Sasuke is Zabuza.

Sometimes, Sasuke is Kakashi but also Naruto is Minato... who was Kakashi’s mentor. (Despite Sasuke being Zabuza who was Haku’s mentor/abuser.) Sasuke is Kakashi but Naruto is never really Obito (except for when he is) but Sakura is kind of Rin.

And I could go on, really. Just with paralles with Naruto and Sasuke (and sometimes Sakura) to other characters and other character relationships.

But, the thing is... none of these parallels ever really make sense besides maybe Hashimada/Madara. These parallels are largely surface level. Except for one thing... all of these people and relationships ended tragically, dooming Sasuke and Naruto from the start. Fate said you are Team 7, you are Senju and Uchiha, you are born into enemy lines but Sasuke and Naruto are proof of that fate being defied.

Their bond, their love, their trauma bonding endured what those before them couldn’t. Their bond healed wounds that weren’t even theirs and gave redemption to people long gone. They are liberation from the cycle of despair.

They have broken the chains their ancestors, teachers, and enemies have put onto them. Their love is greater than any bondage put onto them.

And... that’s how you accidentally write one of the best love stories of all time

[pseudospectre]

Can I please have a month without vet bills. Please.

[diocletianscabbagefarm]

Wh- why did the South African delegation need 120 special forces and 12 containers of weapons and equipment on their peace mission to Kyiv 😬