#im doing this for the last living fish in the tank. stay strong i will get the pump and you will survive

[kan-bu]

i love snow i love winter. i listen to dungeon synth and role play being a fantasy protag in order to go pick up a package. normal

[shaydeoffical]

If the World was Ending. Denki x Reader

Summary: You and Denki dated for two years before his chaotic work week got between you. The final straw was when he missed your sister’s wedding and you didn’t have a partner to walk you down the aisle. Denki was working himself to the bone, and being reckless. You split before you get the chance to see him run himself into the ground. But when the earth begins to shake, there’s only one person you want more than anyone else.  

Words: 2K 

If the World Was Ending

   It was three in the morning when the earthquakes started. My power went out, my fish tank shattered, and my bed rattled. Hurrying, I blindly scoped Bubbles up from the floor and put him into the cup of water on my bedside table. My bookshelf hit the floor barley missing my toes. Grasping my glasses, and dodging the frame that fell from above my bed, I fell reaching for my desk.

   Before I could hide under a table, it was over. Glass was embedded in my foot, blood trailed through the carpet. "What the hell just-"I  sprang up, wincing before sinking into the bed. Pushing my hair back, securing Bubbles in my dresser drawer in a bundle of clothes, I just took a deep breath.

   I hoped he was safe.

   Hand hoovering my phone, the screen had yet to light up. Still, I pulled up the blank contact, wondering if I should try it. Surely, I was blocked…its not like we ended on bad terms, but it wasn't right to get in his way now.

   Another rumble shook my cottage, my thumb pressing the contact before dropping my phone altogether. "Shi- shit." Leaving my phone, I dashed under my desk and waited for it to end. Tears welled in my eyes, and I counted backward from one hundred. Before I got to seventy, it was over.

   This time, I went to look out my bedroom window. The city was in flames. There was a distant glow of emergency services and smoke raising. Was Kami okay? "Denki."

   My phone had gone straight to voicemail. I ended the memo and tried to turn on my data to see what the news was saying. Nothing, so the cell towers were down. It was pointless to call him dumb even. He had nothing left for me, and I had nothing for him.  

   "Stupid stupid stupid." I limped into the kitchen, pulling out my flashlights, and getting a basin of water. Slowly I began to pluck the glass from my heel. I hoped he was home, tucked away for the night. Maybe, he slept right through it and would wake up just fine. Better yet, perhaps he was away for work and had no clue any of this was happening.    

More rumbles and my tiny chandelier was swinging wildly. My dirty water sloshing into the floor, and spreading to the living room. This time I hid under the archway and waited it out. My stomach churned with knots, light-headed, and tired. Today was going to be over soon enough… My knees gave up under me, one of my cabinets bursting open, and the china splattering all over the floor.

   "Denki," I whispered, gripping handfuls of plush carpet and crying. Nothing was the same, we ended on good terms. He was to busy with work, and I wasn't ready to commit. That doesn't mean he wouldn't come to me. Did he have this calling in his chest? The unmistakable rumble in my soul, longing for his embrace.    

   Pressing the am setting on the radio, I slid the seat back and covered my head. There was no static, no alarms or warning.

   My finger wavered over his contact, the one I swore I'd delete last year. The one with a blank profile picture and a fake name. Still, I only hoovered, the trembling was inching me closer to knowing the truth. Was I blocked? Did he even have my number in his phone? Was he on a date or running home? He such a flirt there was no way he'd be at home on a Saturday.

   Clawing at my chest, I braced with the other hand. I wanted him, needed him. For all, I knew he was in the arms of another, but I needed him. I had to move.

   Once the shaking was over, I put my shoes limping over the debris and slinging open my front door. A hand brought down on my nose in a 'knocking' motion. "Oh shit," he yelled, pulling me into his arms, pushing my hand from my nose and examining it. Bright yellow eyes peering into me. I could never forget that hue or the way they looked straight through me. "I was just paroling the area, and-"

   "You didn't get my call?" He nursed my face, rubbing his finger over the bridge of my nose, cooing.

   "You still have my number?" he smiled, pushing the hair from my eyes.

   "Hu," I pulled back, the earth erupting again. Denki shoved me against his chest and covered my head, standing under the doorway.

   "Hold tight Kitty," he purred in my ear. Sensations that I thought were dead bloomed within my stomach. The familiar scent of old spice and hair gel, creating an oldy calming fog around me.

   I wound my first in his button-up, burying my head in chest. The tv hit the floor behind me, and the coo-coo clock toppled over screaming.        

        Flinching as a coil hit my ankle, Denki squished me deeper under his chest. "I needed you. I just didn't think you'd come," I wept, the termer ending, but Denki's hold staying strong. "I want you. I always want you when I'm scared."

   "So many times, I've thought about coming by. I just knew if the world was ending, I wanted to be beside you." Slowly I looked up, our lips inching closer. "Do you want to?"

   Meeting him in the middle, our lips meet in quick peeks. It was slow, till he bites the bottom of my lip. Grasing my thigh, he pulled my leg onto his hip, pinning me against the door frame. Moving down my throat, leaving little kisses and peaks. "Chargebolt," I let out his hero name in a moan, his ultimate trigger.  As if a year hadn't passed, he picked me up, danced over the ruins, and straight to my bedroom.

   "I missed you," I gasped, fiddling with the top buttons of his shirt. He slipped it past his shoulders and exposed his stomach. There was a new scar, bubbled up but faded. His eyes followed mine, and he softened, covering his skin. His gaze going to the door, lip sucked in.  

   "It's nothing, (Y/n)." He started to put his shirt back on, and I grabbed the sides of the shirt. "Kitten," he pleased for me to let it go.

   "You don't have to hide from me." Moving his hands aside, I rubbed the area in the dark. The wound was just under his ribs and ran diagonally to his pelvis. He was watching my every move, shivering while my fingers traced around the once life-threatening injury. Knowing I could have lost him forever, I kissed the mark. "Im sorry for- uh." Denki was on top of me like a fly on sugar, caging me. The house shifting and popping with each quake. "Are we going to die?" I gripped to his shirt with one hand and covered his head with the other. He was alive, and here, and I was going to lose him.

   "No, Kitty, we're fine." He nibbled along my neck, distracting me as the episode started and stopped. Another round hit directly after and I wondered if the world was ending. "It's okay, I'm right here. I'm not going anywhere, baby." His voice didn't crack with any hint of fear. But his love bites were too straight for me to believe he was okay. He was usually a passionate, albeit sloppy, lover. If there was one thing I understood, it was that Denki Kaminair was worried...and still cared about me.

   My breath hitched in my throat. Could he really just stay? "Denki, I don't want to ever say goodbye again." I dug my nails through his hair, not believing that he was really here. That after all this time, he was holding me, protecting me, as if everything had changed and nothing at the same time. As if we were where we needed to be before we ultimately died.

   "You don't have to. Never again." The quake stopped. Denki lowered himself down, our lips latching in a slow kiss. His hands wound under my back, and he pulled us into a sitting position. I straddled his lap, hands around his neck, and his around my waist, sliding up my spine.

   "Do you mean it?" I asked as he trailed kissed down my collar bone, nipping and sucking in an erratic pattern. "Or do you just wanna?"

   "There hasn't been a day you haven't crossed my mind." He just gawked. It wasn't his typical lusty gaze with a smirk, but a soft longing. Lips parted with the smallest smile, brows raised in awe and gaze unwavering. Even his hands had yet to grab a handful of my ass. He was calculated, desperate, yet so afraid. This side of Denki is one I never saw in the two years we dated. "I still love you. There are just a few things I needed to learn to love you the way you deserved. When I alost lost my life, I realized I wanted to be a hero to the world, but more than that- I wanted to give my life to you. You were more than those long hours. There are so many heroes in the world, but I was yours- and I didn't show up when you needed me. That's never going to happen again."

   "Denki." I chewed my lower lip, his thumb pulling it from my teeth and brushing my cheek.

   "Don't cry, Kitty." He pressed our forehead together, tears streaming down his own face. "When you cry, I do."

   "You're such a goofball." I chuckled bursting into tears. "I missed you so bad." I kissed circles around his lips, then pecked them a few times. "I still love you too. Don't think that I want to stop you from being a hero. There's just one person in this world that I can't live without. Denki, I just want to see you more than twice a week." I admitted, leaving myself open to the pain, to him possible breaking my heart. He could up and leave when the quakes stop, or before I wake up. It was uncertain, but-

   "(Y/n), stop whatever you are thinking. I know that look, I'm not going anywhere. I'm not the same man who forgot missed your first surgery, or your sister's wedding." He pushed me back into bed, laying onto of me. Threading our hands together and slipping to the side, pushing me flush against him. "I didn't come over here because I was going to leave today, or ever. Well, if you told me too, I would have. I just realized what was important a few months ago, and after the shake, I knew I couldn't wait for a minute longer. I couldn't stop thinking about you about us. There's no natural disaster on earth that could keep me from you. Not now, not ever. If the world was ending, I'd still be right here Kitty."  

   "But you left before," I whispered, hiding my head in his chest to avoid any hurt his face could show. "And I didn't chase you. What about that? What does that say about me?"

   "That's never going to happen again. You shouldn't have had to run for me." Our fingers flexed, and he freed one hand, cupping my cheek. "I love you."

   Another tremor rocked our world, this one was shorter, but Denki still covered my head. The house settled once again; this time, there wasn't a loud clatter or splash. This time the world was quiet spare for the thumping in my ears, the blood working its up my face and into my head. I missed this feeling. "Hold me till tomorrow?" I asked, grabbing his collar and flipping him beside me.

   "I'll hold you forever." I snuggled into his chest, his lips connecting with my forehead. Our arms tangled around each other, and Denki's upper hand resting just across my hip. His slid hand under my shirt, rubbing images on my back. Spelling out the word love over and over again. Feeling brave, I wrapped my legs against his and rubbed his ankle with my toes.

   "I'm glad you came back." I yawned, kissing him before flopping my head against the pillow.  

   "I hope you feel the same way when you wake up." Denki giggled, opening my nightstand to put away his google. "Why is the fish in the draw?"

[wellamarke]

Hey Joni :) Long time no speak, but wanted to see if you had any advice. I'm thinking about owning a stick insect, do you have any suggestions? such as, should I get more than one or are they happy being on their own? Do you use a heat mat under their tank to keep it warm? (also as Im planning to total own giant snails and giant leaf insects if I can in the near future but thats a step up! - are giant snails quite easy to look after?) x

[2/2]Hey Joni, You know that ask about stick insects and giant african snails I sent you a little while ago, can I add in a question? Ive read that snails carry salmonella bacteria like reptiles, does this make it difficult to keep them? I’m a bit of a germaphobe so salmonella makes me a little nervous but I’m absolutely in love with giant snails! Thank you!

Hellooooo! Sorry it’s taken so long for this to materialise. This is my third attempt at writing this, since my phone decided to eat it twice. Apparently I’m cursed. But now I’m here in a different app, praying that I’m not about to write an essay for nothing….

I thought I would post the reply publically so that anyone else who finds themselves interested in stick insects or snails can read it too. It might end up serving as a little FAQ section if my bug-keeping ways ever become known enough to be asked about frequently, heh heh heh.

So, here goes. Take three.

Stick Insect Suggestions

Plurality In terms of what they actually prefer - I’m not sure they mind much. I’ve kept them in pairs, triples, groups and - in the case of the recently departed Douglas - singles, and they seem to go about their Insecty business much the same, unencumbered by feelings of loneliness or rivalry. So I suppose it’s up to your preference how many you keep! Here are a couple of factors to consider, though:Babies sometimes die inexplicably. Well, perhaps to a doctor of stick insect ailments it wouldn’t be inexplicable… but through no fault of the owner, some nymphs don’t shed their skins properly, or fall from their tank roofs and damage themselves, and there’s not much you can do about it. So it seems best to start off with a handful of insects to ensure that you get at least one or two who survive into adulthood. (I still don’t know what happened to Carolyn, one of my original five. She developed a strange dent in her back that made her look as though she’d been snapped in half, but other than that seemed fine until it was time to shed her skin, which she couldn’t do. Babies are fragile, I guess. Once full grown they’re much less prone to random dying.) Ease of cleaning out. Once Douglas was alone it was soooo much easier to change over his leaves, because there was only one of him to keep an eye on why I did so. Cleaning out a tank while six of them are crawling all over the place requires a lot more presence of mind, obviously! Usually with just Doug I waited until he was in a convenient position where I didn’t have to disturb him too much, like on the roof or in one of the corners. If he was on the roof it was perfect because I could dump all the old leaves and swill out the whole tank. If he was in a corner I could at least wipe it. I tried not to bother him too much in his old age, otherwise I suppose I could have just moved him where I wanted him. This, too, would have been easier to do with just him to worry about.So you see there are advantages to having a group and having a single. Although you could get around the group difficulties by having a secondary container to deposit them in while you cleaned out their proper tank, I suppose.

Heat MatsHere is a secret about stick insects: they are easy to look after. Apparently on the internet, this is a secret. On the internet people like to overromanticise their Foreign Exoticness™, and would have you installing a heat mat, a miniature gymnasium, a salad bar and a skating rink for the comfort of your Foreign Exotic™ pets. But truthfully they are not fussy creatures, in my experience. Unless you live in the Arctic, your home is probably not too cold for them. I have never had heat mats for my sticks. I would say you need to guard against them getting too hot, rather than too cold - and I live in England!When I was about twelve, I had my very first stick insects, Stan and Laurel, for a rather brief amount of time that was cruelly cut short by them dying of heatstroke. They were left in direct sunlight for a couple of hours, and cooked. Meanwhile, the insects I’ve had since then have survived English winters with no ill effects - and no heat mats. Of course, mine are Indian Stick Insects, the most basic kind money can buy. I claim absolutely no expertise on any other kind of stick (or leaf, or indeed otherwise shaped) insect - possibly, some of the ones that truly have a degree of Foreign Exoticness™ will be glad of a good heat mat. Don’t quote me unless you’re buying Indians. Probably don’t quote me at all, lest the Righteous Exotickers descend on me…! But I would honestly say Indian stick insects are fine in most climates without a heat mat.

Other things:

I very rarely handle my stick insects - the few times I’ve touched them have mostly been accidental! Maybe it’s me projecting my touch-phobe ways onto them, but Douglas lived four months longer than the average so I can only guess that he was pleased to go undisturbed for most of his life. My defence here is that if I wanted a touchy-feely pet, I would have got one with fur. (Also, I read somewhere once that sometimes being picked up can scare them, and they’ll just drop a leg and run away, hopefully regenerating the limb later but if not, their attitude is “oh well, at least I got away from the scary human with my other five”. I have no idea if this is true, but I don’t touch them with my hands if I can help it. If I do need to move them I try and tempt them onto a leaf first. Though if a stick has decided it wants to be somewhere, you often have a job convincing it to move.)

I have recently taken to setting some stems with leaves on in little containers of water, which makes them last much longer. But the insects could drown in more than a few drops of water, so the containers are covered, with just a few holes in their lids to let the stalks through. I don’t know if that’s a good enough description, maybe I’ll add a photo here later of this setup.

They love to drink tiny water droplets, so a spray bottle is a good thing to keep on hand. You can get away with only changing the leaves every four or five days if the spray’s there to break it up.

They have cute little faces. Once they’re adult it’s big enough to see. Make sure you cherish their faces and tell them often that they are beautiful.

Don’t worry if the top part of their front legs start going red. I thought Doug and his siblings had developed some kind of disease when I first noticed this! But actually red “armpits” (as I began calling them) are a sign of healthy adulthood. If anything it just means you can stop worrying that they’ll die during skin-shedding, because they won’t need to shed anymore. (Again, I can only speak for Indians… perhaps in other stick species red legs is a sign that the End Times are upon us!)

I have recently taken to covering the floor of the tanks with tissue paper. I never bothered before this generation of babies hatched, but when they did I read that tissue is a good idea, because if they fall on it they’ll be protected. Now I just kind of do it anyway, even though they’re all about the same age as Douglas and Co were when I got them. Not only does it protect them a little from falling, it makes clearing out the droppings ten times easier, especially if they insist on staying put when you’re trying to do so. As mentioned, they are stubborn beasties. I wonder sometimes if they were called stick insects because their feet stick to things, and then we named wooden sticks after them because of the resemblance, rather than the other way round…

Giant Snails!

Are they easy to look after?Yes, I think so! They eat most kinds of fruit and vegetables - exhaustive lists can be found on Snail Forums, but mine are especially fond of lettuce and broccoli. They’re not that bothered about strawberries or cabbage, I’ve found. I don’t know if this is typical or just Snailsa and Shelemiah being awkward. It’s fun to watch them eating, and I just take out uneaten food once it looks a bit old, before it goes mouldy on them. I also don’t give them the outer leaves of lettuce etc, because it might have pesticides on. The other thing they like - for some reason - is flakes meant for exotic fish. No idea why, and I probably wouldn’t have thought to give it to them, but the people we adopted them from sent them with a tub of fish food, and sure enough, they can’t get enough of the stuff. If they’re sulking about something and won’t eat, I sprinkle a bit of fish food and suddenly everything is forgiven. Strange but true.They also need a sprinkle of calcium every now and then on their food, to help keep their shells strong. Everywhere you look people recommend cuttlefish bone too, and I have given mine some, but I’ve never seen them actually use it so for good measure I still sprinkle a little calcium. They like to be kept damp, so every day I spray them with water. Sometimes if they get too hot they seal themselves into their shells, and then they need a good dousing from the spray bottle to coax them out. The first time it happened I thought they were dead… but they’ve revived each time, and I just try not to let them get too dry for too long. I also have to check for eggs every few days, and they should be removed and frozen. (I’m not sure how easy/legal it is to breed your own baby snails. Everywhere I’ve read, it just says not to. You definitely can’t release them into the wild, because they’re not part of the ecosystem here.) I actually haven’t ever found an egg… so I’m not sure how often they’re supposed to appear?!I think snails do prefer to live in pairs or more, for what it’s worth. They are, to quote something I read online, “gregarious”. Love that word. Never seen it used in regard to stick insects, but… The snails have the kind of peat/soil stuff sold for large spider care, in the bottom of their tank to bury themselves in or dig around. I change that when it gets old but I’m not sure how often it should by rights be changed. Usually ends up being every other month or so.

SalmonellaYes, they do carry salmonella, which is a little unfortunate. I have a supply of plastic gloves that I keep with their tank, and I use them the whole time I’m handling them or their stuff. Then afterwards I still wash my hands with soap, because….. you never know! I’m not usually a germaphobe at all but I’m being unprecedentedly careful over the snails, heh heh. Maybe I’ll get lazier once I’ve had them a bit longer (as I’ve heard of other people touching them with their bare hands etc), but at the moment I’m taking the double precaution. It’s not much of a bother really, in comparison to how cute they are to look at :D

Well, I think that’s it, and woohooo, my phone has left it alone so far! Now let’s see if it will post. Doubtless I’ll come back and add more things as I remember them, but for now… this has been a Sticks & Snails PSA! Thank you for your attention.