#you send an ask you get an infodump

[starry-bi-sky]

Just the idea of clone Danny and clone Talia working out much bette then him and Talia would confuse poor Bruce. And best part all 4 of them don'T believe he is batman Danny: "We know he is your Sugarbaby, Mom and dad talked about it." Clone Talia:" So no fear, my OG liked a Himbo. And well Danny is a one too."

FR THO AND THEN THERE’S BABY DAMES IN THE CORNER SWEATING BECAUSE HE KNOWS. HE KNOWS. THE LoA TOLD HIM. He’s not saying SHIT though because this is hilarious. He’s silently laughing in the corner. And yessss Clone Danny and Clone Talia working out much better is exactly why I thought of it -- because one its funny and two the potential angst. the could have been.

It doesn't ever occur to Bruce to tell them he's batman but that conversation still comes up during mealtime one day while Danny's recovering (he has to be tied to his chair because he found the gym and nearly dislocated his shoulder trying to train. Dammit Danny your bones are made of glass right now from destabilizing, let your cells repair before doing anything!) because the four of them were talking about Batman and his clan of kids.

Danny, frowning: im not a himbo?

Nasra: reportedly when you first met Damian, your first response to his attacking you was to... grab the blade with your hands, multiple times. This resulted in you slicing a nerve in both hands and permanently weakening your fine motor control.

Danny: well--

Nasra: even now you're rubbing your palms, you only do that when your hands are bothering you.

Damian, snapping his head up: what!?

Danny: you noticed that?? also i learned. I didn't repeat myself when you attacked me when we met, did I?

Nasra: i. suppose not. you're still a himbo, however.

also Danny does his usual 'run on negative sleep' bullshit while in the manor except now he has not only damian but also Nasra tag-teaming his bullshit. Like no, Danny. you need sleep to recover your strength. your ghostly investigation can wait until you're not about to pass out and break your nose on your laptop. They have whole ass arguments in arabic - all three of them - as damian AND nasra drag danny to the closest soft horizontal surface. Danny returns the favor to the both of them when those two are also doing their 'negative sleep' stuff.

Dick at bby Dames: so do you....

Damian: know that you guys are Batman and his family? Yeah. Grandfather and Mother told me before I was living with Danny.

Tim: how come Danny and Nasra don't know then?

Damian: I didn't think it was important to tell Danny that his original was Batman. He does know of the League, however. He calls Grandfather my "super evil, ecofascist grampa and his cult of killers" and doesn't want to know more out of worry of needing to get involved.

Dick: I - really?

Damian: yes, he figured that since grandfather had yet to successfully wipe out my original, then that whatever Damian Wayne was doing was working. And that if he knew more, then he might have to get involved, and he has own problems to worry about than the League of Assassins.

[dye-it-rouge-et-noir]

"For particularly important things, it's always more reassuring to write them down like this." - Zhang Beihai

[ID in alt text]

[russell-crowe]

inspired by @footnoteinhistory's lengthy and loving reviews of psh movies, i decided to write one of my own. 🥺❤️

[has-brain-rot]

I finally began watching voltron

OKAY SO at the recommendation of a super cool person (@imperfection-you-will-find (sorry if you don’t want to be tagged) ) I got into watching Voltron: Legendary Defenders and I just finished the first season AND IT IS A REALLY COOL SHOW. I know I’m like 5 years late to the party but the animation! Characters! World building! All very interesting!! Love how smoothly they blend those 3D models into the show, it’s barely noticeable

Here’s a few thoughts (before I go binge the next season)

- first off it is BOLD that the first episode is an hour+ long. like damn they didn’t have to do that but they did and the pacing is surprisingly good for what they had to do, though I lowkey wish there was more adventuring-to-find-the-rest-of-the-lions because that part was pretty interesting, especially when they talked about having to form a bond with the lions first

- Hunk is a cool guy and I really like how he develops and ends up being one of the more serious characters (when, unfortunately, he isn’t the but of the joke. He’s neat but they make fun of his weight a fair bit and that’s not fun). Love how he has a good sus-detector, also he was SLAYING when he saved people during the season 1 finale

- Pidge is REALLY COOL and I personally (so far at least) headcanon them as enby. they also give off transman vibes and honestly that’s what I thought they were going to do with the character until the reveal. It’s cool how they handled it, and I love that the show didn’t go for an all-boy cast because that’d be disappointing.

- Lance is kinda annoying but he’s growing on me. I’m not the biggest fan but I like how he’s developing. Blue colour scheme is cool, but damn he really put everyone and an entire planet in danger just because he crushed briefly on a girl. Shame.

- Shiro is COOL. We don’t know much about him and the portrayal of his trauma is a really good thing to add. I do find it mildly funny (in a dark way? funny might not be the right word) that like. Lance and Hunk are there because vibes, Pidge is there for vibes but also they were on a mission of their own, Keith right now is very mysterious and gives off many vibes, but Shiro’s backstory is that he was tortured for a year, forced to fight, there’s the implication that his body was forcefully modified as he was trained to be a weapon, and also he’s probably killed quite a few people and he’s trying to deal with that and everything while like, they’re vibing

- Keith is COOL. Red lion swag. Love his somewhat morally ambiguous vibes, also I feel like he’s going to be a big projection character. They haven’t really covered his background other than he dropped out, but I bet there’s a lot more going on. I can DEFINITELY see he is liked. ALSO I feel like the whole “you fight like a Galra soldier” is more than just a one off line. I sense it. Plus the whole “you have to earn the trust of the red lion, you can’t just befriend it right away” gives off big flags of “HEY PAY ATTENTION”. I could write so much about this but I wanna go binge the second season xD

- THE CLIFFHANGER OF A FINAL EPISODE. There is so much I could talk about (the character development, the battle scenes, everything is so cool. It’s like seeing all the things I wish we could’ve seen in steven universe and also I think belos would be proud of the general genocide even if it isn’t religion based). I’ll keep it short and just say that DAMN SO MUCH HAPPENS AND IT IS VERY COOL

I’m going in spoiler free and it’s quite fun! Thanks for the recommendation @imperfection-you-will-find, can’t wait to watch more so I can fully appreciate your super cool edits and posts xD

[catholickedd]

hi cath how r u

pretty ok!! it’s pj day at our school so i am v comfy >:D

slightly worried though. my friend came out to me as transfem a few days ago & i was super happy & supportive! i made her a trans bracelet with her chosen name on it & she loved it!

but i think she may have taken it the wrong way and i don’t want to let her down bc she’s a really good person but i’m seeing the signs and i really can’t think of her that way

anyways how are you?

[todayisafridaynight]

[ almost ] seasonal question; what do you think the arakawa family does for the holidays?

jo bbg answered that for us three seconds into y7 now didnt he

[bowsnbots]

@thetravelershub sent:

Hey, Blathers, have you considered that maybe bugs have feelings, too? Look at this face. This Caterpie was having a nice little stroll through the museum, just trying to get some shelter from the cold — and maybe even learn a thing or two about fossils — and this is the reception it’s met with. Unbelievable. You can stop squawking in terror, now. The Caterpie will just silently crawl away, and —

Oh. Caterpie isn’t moving towards the exit, it’s dejectedly heading towards the art exhibit. (Randomly generated nature/characteristic- quiet, likes to run! I’m not sure how it runs, exactly—)

—Oh good heavens, why did it have to be him.

It's already a lot when he's donated a bug in a little container. At least in those little plastic walls, it can't touch him, but watching the wretched thing writhe in its home is enough to make his feathers stand on end. It should come as no surprise that he avoids the bug wing as much as owl-ly possible, given that they're just OUT AND ABOUT—

...Needless to say, this thing wandering around a non-bug portion of his museum? Well, um. Sorry you had to see a grown owl dance around like he's standing on hot coals like that, Caterpie. And hoot. A lot.

What even is it? It almost resembles a spicebrush swallowtail... or maybe an Asian swallowtail? Honestly, the fact he can't tell for sure only freaks him out even more. The possibilities are endless. What if it's poisonous? Venomous? What if it has even more legs than he can see!?

"Ough..." He groans, mostly to himself. The poor man's gonna need a nap after this. Especially as he watches it more closely... this larger than average bug really is scaring the socks off of him. But still... though bugs are the bane of his existence...

...even this wretched thing deserves the best of care here.

"E-Excuse me!!" Blathers suddenly blurts out, likely loud enough for others outside to hear. "You would much prefer the bug wing, I believe!"

Talking to a bug. Maybe he's finally going crazy.

"Unless you... eat paint, perhaps. Or stone." Imagining that thing with teeth is gonna scare him some more. "Oh, heavens, I'll gladly provide either if you'd remain in the bug wing, please!"

...

Blink. Blink. It stopped going towards the art wing, at least?

...This bug is his problem now, isn't it.

[in-another-april]

I’m so obsessed with the idea of Spencer finally finding someone he feels comfortable around!! Someone who loves him for who he is!! Who’s actually interested in him and what he has to say!!

It’s a bit overwhelming for him in the beginning, starting on one of his infodumps and realizing that you’re still listening, genuinely interested and encouraging him to keep going. He’s so used to the annoyed “sorry I asked”s and the sarcastic “wow, so interesting”s, and he worries that it’ll always be like this.

But then he meets you! And here you are, trying on ridiculous Halloween costumes with him, helping him pick out his funky socks for the day, accompanying him to every film festival and convention. And here he is, smiley and heart-eyed as ever, getting emotional in the best way because wow this is his person!! and he loves you so so so much!!

He can let his guard down around you, not having to worry about being Genius Dr. Reid and getting to just be Spencer. Making his cheesy philosophy jokes, showing you his silly magic tricks, ranting about his favorite Doctor Who episodes or the book he’s currently reading.

You cuddle up with him on the couch while you’re watching one of his Russian Sci-Fi films together, you ask him to ramble because you love his voice, you kiss him after he finishes saying something super smart because he’s so ridiculously attractive when he talks and ugh, yeah. he loves you so much.

masterlist | inbox ← requests open! ♡

taglist - @lover-of-books-and-tea @maskysluvr @aurorsworld @wisteriaspencer @radioactiveinvisible @mandarinmoons (send an ask or message to be added/removed!)

[inkskinned]

actually, i love you, so you cannot be ugly to me. sometimes i think i have no idea what you actually look like. i know we've been friends for like a while but if someone asked oh who's that i'd talk about how funny you are, how charming. about how i have watched you grow as a person, about how you often choose kindness where i would honestly choose a feral violence. i know you keep a tally of your mistakes and they run around your brain - but in mine? i think they never even make it past the front gate. when i think of you my heart swells up with all the weird shit we've done together and how you've talked me through heartbreak and how i've held your hair back and how we both are like, in therapy, and totally above gossiping, but also like, are going to spill the work tea.

i know! i know you feel ugly. i know you hate that you show symptoms, that you're not normal. you said once - i'm afraid to show others the real me. but i see the other things - about these little quirks that are so, so endearing to me. how you are gentle to strangers. how you stand by your friends. how comfortable you make everybody. how you say hey, did you get home safe? even when it's like 6 feet i'm walking.

i love you. yesterday you spent an hour liveblogging the episode of owl house that you're on and i was like - this person is so fucking amazing. last night you said sorry for infodumping. as if you have anything to apologize for. as if part of the reason we're friends is because i love it when you do this, i love listening. i love you, idiot. i love you so fucking much. i want to stick you in a cage so you stop getting random injuries. i want to throw you into a garbage disposal every time you send me that one specific meme. i love you, i love you, i love you. you mean absolutely everything to me.

[deathdetermineslife]

meet my f/o ask game !!!

💘 - what's your f/o favorite kind of gift to give?

🌸 - whats your f/o's favorite flower? is there any reason that's their favorite?

🍬 - do they like sweets? whats their favorite kind of candy?

🏩 - how does your f/o act when they're sick?

🧶 - other than their main hobby/career, what other sorts of things do they like to do?

🧼 - what scent of soap do they use?

🩵 - does your f/o (if romantic) use any kind of pickup lines on you?

🫂 - how does your f/o feel about physical touch? what's their favorite kind?

🫐 - do they have a favorite fruit? what is it? why is it their favorite?

💠 - do they have a favorite thing to do when they're bored? what is it?

✈️ - what's their dream place to travel to?

🧊 - how do they feel about winter time? do they like it? what do they wear to stay warm?

💜 - if your f/o could receive any gift in the entire world, no matter what it was, what would they want?

🪻 - if your f/o has ever bought you flowers, what kind do they buy you the most? do they go to a florist? or do they get them from a convenience store? maybe they grow their own?

🍇 - what's a food your f/o will not eat. just absolutely will not touch at all. they hate it.

👾 - does your f/o have a favorite video game? if they do, what is it? if they don't, what do you think they would like?

🧬 - if your f/o could go into any other career than they're currently in, what would they go into?

reblog or whateva you want to use :) feel free to send me some asks as well! (I love infodumping hsjbsgsja)

[tkingfisher]

The exact variety of my neurospiciness is undetermined, but I’ve found that with enough enthusiastic questioning, many people will absolutely infodump about something. Usually somewhat nervously at first, as if they are doing something illicit, but if you ask questions that show you’re interested and paying attention, they will go.

I did this a lot on book tours and convention appearances, when you get lots of teachers and librarians or some nice person driving you from point A to point B, and I think they expect you to talk about yourself or something? But damn, I’ve probably been talking about me for days at that point, I know me, I am not interested in more me! Tell me about your job or your hobbies or the local drama where you live!

There was a woman who told me all about the problems of displaying old fabrics in museum collections, the doctor who dealt with a syphilis outbreak in a nursing home, the school principal with a neighborhood infestation of feral peacocks, the vet who was absolutely done with the paint horse people, and my personal favorite, the guy who was a former Coke spy.

(Apparently back in the day, Coke was very concerned that the soda being served as Coke at various restaurants actually be Coke, and furthermore that it be purchased from the licensed vendor of their cola syrups from that area. Buying syrup from someone else out of the area was a legal issue, I guess, but also you had lots of franchise owners who would try to buy a cheap knockoff soda syrup and pass it off as Coke? So this guy’s job for years was to travel, go into restaurants, and order a Coke. Then he’d scoop some into a vial when the waitstaff wasn’t looking and send it off to an actual lab to see if it was the real thing. There was a lot of syrup being imported from Mexico, and this was a big legal deal before NAFTA, I guess? Anyway he said the worst offenders were Howard Johnson’s.)

I suspect I left a trail of somewhat confused people behind me going “She seemed pleasant enough but then I mentioned the feral peacocks on the playground and she grilled me for ten minutes?”

The only place this absolutely failed me was in L.A. I had multiple people who just started name-dropping and if I’d ask what was cool or interesting about their job, they’d name-drop harder. My agent sighed heavily when told this and said that yeah, that’s just a Hollywood thing, you’re only as interesting as who you know. It was extremely weird and awkward and probably as frustrating for them as it was for me.

(Years later I learned that my publicist had literally put into the little fact sheet for book tours that I was terrible at small talk and please not to take offense, which may explain why a couple of media escorts treated me like an unexplored bomb at first.)

[horseimagebarn]

Ok so thanks for the answer vis a vis the centaur situation I appreciate it a lot and I'm not trying to convince you to change your ruling but unfortunately you used the word taxonomy which triggered one of my damn neurodivergences. I hope you don't mind but my response will be to deposite these few paragraphs in your inbox I'm sorry in advance if this comes off as aggressive or condescending or just plain annoying I'm just sensing an opportunity to infodump to someone who might be interested in tbe topic so I'm seizing it I'm sure you know what it's like

Anyway there's a disconnect between pragmatism and scientific rigor that people are blind to which vexes me and biological taxonomy is a particular pet peeve of mine the biggest instance of it is crocodiles and alligators which are really the same damn animal for all intents and purposes but that's not relevant

Naturally when one thinks of horses one thinks of domestic horses specifically (Equus ferus cabellus) but I'd argue that certain pictures of donkeys (Equus africanus) look more like domestic horse pictures than certain pictures of Przewalski's horse (Equus ferus przewlaskii) despite the latter being classified as the same species and the former not

And I feel that for a horse image barn the resemblence of a picture to an archetypical horse image should be a higher priority criterion for inclusion than some criteria that biological taxonomy relies on like the presence of specific haplotypes which isn't even a word anyone knows and if you go to its Wikipedia article you get a definition of it that's not really relevant to this ask

So yeah in conclusion I wouldn't tie the in/ex-clusion of images to scientific taxonomy but to Vibes if I were the admin of this or a similar blog but I'm not and you are so you can like do whatever

Also I won't be submitting the centaur image I wanted to submit but can I still send it as an ask I like showing it to people spreading it around etc it's kind of cursed but also funny and I like it a lot and I understand why it's not horse enough to your taste but it's definitely horse adjacent and I want to share it

as a fellow animal wikipedia delver i agree that taxonomy is not the end all be all of the human perception of animals however what i meant to imply is that the differences between centaurs and horses are large enough to be considered taxonomical and are not debatable even in a taxonomical sense due to their many massive differences also i have posted przewalskis horses before as they are true horses and this is horseimagebarn not assimagebarn or centaurimagebarn even though i love donkeys just as much and would own a donkey over a horse any day

i did just take my adderall and am bored at work so i have to humbly yet lengthily disagree with you that taxonomy is not important in both cases presented while the crocodilian assumption you make has bruised my heart as i love alligators and i find them far cuter than crocodiles due to the differences in their jaw structure that makes their bottom teeth fit into their mouth instead of jutting out like crocodiles (which is one of the many actual and notable physical differences between them alongside choice of salt or fresh water etc) i wont get into that and will focus on horses since thats the point of this blog using actual punctuation and capitalization for the first time in this blogs history ill be referring to przewalskis horse as takhi as it is also known so i dont make a typo which i know i will

long ass (donkey pun) post warning

Taxonomy can of course be vague at times or muddied, but it is not an invalid study. All human knowledge is constantly evolving, and mistakes are inevitably going to be made, but that does not make our efforts invalid. It is beneficial for us to know how evolution works. Taxonomical differences are real and worth considering, even if mistakes are made sometimes. Two animals looking similar is not a valid reason to ignore their taxonomical differences, nor is it okay to ignore similarities because they look different—if we went by that logic, every dog breed would be a totally different species.

Speaking of, here's a little more on the whole appearance thing before we get into the science:

The other day, I was watching a video about the actual horses that existed in antiquity, and they are far more similar to takhi than you might think. I'll link the video if I can find it, apologies for a lack of a source on this right now, but the gist of it was that horses of yore were much shorter and stouter than modern horses. The tall, thin horse often seen in modern depictions of ancient time is inaccurate, as is the thick, muscular draft, which didn't become common until later on. Back then, people wanted horses that were sturdy—most people didn't care as much about specific breeds or having the hugest and prettiest horse on the block, especially when food to maintain larger animals like modern horses wasn't always guaranteed, and having such a huge animal could be dangerous and more difficult. Their horses were more similar to ponies than our big guys now, and ponies aren't a separate species. The selective breeding of horses to become taller and leaner made them appear way different from the takhi, but just like dogs, they remain extremely similar to those of their taxa despite looking different on the surface. For example, take a look at the ancient fjord horse breed next to the takhi...in fact, sometimes takhis are called Mongolian ponies! We can even see this in ancient art earlier in the horse's domestication:

Anyway, science:

Firstly, the takhi isn't wholly classified as the same exact species as the true horse, our domesticated Equus ferus caballus. Both Equus ferus callabus and Equus ferus przewalskii are considered subspecies of caballines, or true horses, meaning they're more like cousins (I know it's a cliche to say this, but I mean it), with donkeys and zebras as, like, their nephews twice removed. If the takhi was considered the exact same species as the domestic horse with no acknowledged differences, it would be considered a breed of horse, not a subspecies (though breeds are typically manmade, they are not always—see the word "typical" in the dictionary definition). This means that it does have recognized, distinct differences from the standard domesticated horse that have been taken into consideration in their taxonomy—it is not like the two are blindly considered the same exact thing.

Mistakes have been made in Equus taxonomy in the past, but continued research has led to a retaxing of the genus as early as the 1980s. In the 2012 review article "Discordances between morphological systematics and molecular taxonomy in the stem line of equids: A review of the case of taxonomy of genus Equus," by E. Kefena et al., a number of scholars reviewed the methods with which the Equus genus has been taxed in the past and how they have changed in the past few decades.

According to that article, equines are an incredibly plastic genus. They are very good at adapting to their environments, which led past taxonomists to overcount the amount of Equus species that existed in the past and therefore miscategorize the history of the genus in general. Many were actually just adapted versions of the same thing. This is what we see in the horse and takhi—they are similar but have adapted to their different environments and niches.

In 1986, two molecular scientists, George and Ryder, performed the first DNA-based molecular taxonomy on all living equus species, publishing their findings in the article "Mitochondrial DNA evolution in the genus Equus." By mapping equus DNA and constructing a phylogenetic tree, they were able to take a closer look at the actual genetic disparities between equus species.

George and Ryder found that "[In the mtDNA (mitochondrial DNA) cleavage map,] the percent sequence difference between E. przewalskii and E. caballus individuals was found to range between 0.27% and 0.41%. ... Overall, the amount of divergence presented here is small and not much greater than the 0.36% divergence reported for mtDNA differences found among the human racial groups (Brown 1980; Cann et al. 1984)."

So, horses and takhis are incredibly similar. Using these findings, they separated equus species into three clades: "One that groups the zebras, a second that groups E. africanus [African wild ass] and E. hemionus [Asiatic wild ass, aka the hemione], and a third that associates the true [caballine] horses E. przewalskii and E. caballus as a unit. However, as stated previously, the E. africanus-E. hemionus clade remains enigmatic."

They later state that "E. hemionus and E. africanus appeared more karyotypically [chromosomally] similar to each other than to other equids," hence why they were considered a clade despite being "enigmatic." Kefena et al. explain this weird enigma further, and, notably, compare it to the takhi: "Next to Przewalskii's horses, hemiones were the first species to be diverged from the stem line of extant equids, suggesting that they might be closely related to caballine horses than to asses, though they are monophyletic with donkeys than with horses. On the basis of these evidences, morphological resemblance between species doesn't guarantee genetic similarity between equid species." This means that asses and horses have distinct genetic differences that far outweigh those between takhi and domestic horses, despite the fact that donkeys and takhi look more similar. The hemione looks very similar to the African wild ass, and it is closer to it genetically, but it is not the same due to the way it evolved—it broke away from the general line earlier than any other ass. The takhi is the same; it diverted earlier than other horses, but remains very genetically similar—more than any other extant Equus species. And, even with the takhi's extra chromosomal pair, George and Ryder also found that they and horses were also very close karotypically, giving them incredible similarities both mtDNA-wise and chromosome-wise. Despite that different chromosome, horses and takhis can successfully interbreed and produce fertile offspring, unlike horses and donkeys.

Kefena et al. "MYBP" stands for "Millions of Years Before Present" Funnily enough, G&R also say, "There has been little to no dispute over the close relationship that exists between E. przewalskii and E. caballus; thus the addition of E. caballus to the E. przewalskii branch should be easily accepted." Which is so weirdly on the nose that I feel compelled to say that it's on page 544 so no one thinks I'm making it up. So, with their genetic similarities, their actually surprisingly similar appearances, and their sequential DNA similarities, the Przewalski's horse and the domesticated horse do belong in the same category when compared to other equines like donkeys and zebras. They're not identical, but they're in the same room of the larger equine house. And, check out the tarpan, Equus ferus ferus, another subspecies of Equus ferus and the most recently extinct of them all, alongside the current Equus ferus species (and a concept of the original Equus ferus pre-domestication by Cameron Clow on Artstation)! They're all friends:

Conclusion

you can send me centaurs if you want i just wont post them

[snivyartjpeg]

space dandy is one of my favorite anime ever so here's a real self indulgent rain code au where the detectives are space bounty hunters and shinigami is yuma's horrible alien parasite

(lore + spoilers below)(it's a lot so warning for that lol)

so like space mercs and bounty hunters are a classic right? imagine there is a whole ranking system on these guys ran by the intergalactic united government, and there's one guy who's the best in the business: a professional bounty hunter who has no name. he simply responds to his ranking- number one.

he carries out his work anonymously, his face only known by very few elites. born and raised to kill, he's really got no other identity to him.

he's never been fit for close combat, so he excels in stealth and marksmanship, as well as using his little genius mind to macgyver his way out of most situations

well eventually number one gets a little too cocky and gets fatally wounded on a mission. as he's dying, he hears the voice of an alien parasite who goes by shinigami. she's close to death as well without a proper host, so she proposes a deal: she takes over his body, and he gets to live. desperate to survive, he accepts, but the shock of her takeover knocks him unconscious and gives him amnesia.

by the way, shinigami works a lot like venom- she gives him super powers but also she does get hungry. yuma ends up letting her devour (read: she takes over his body and makes him devour) any hunted targets they kill.

anyway, now wholly dependent on her as a guide and life support system, number one manages to escape the planet he nearly died on and reach a trade center to find help. however, once he gets there, he is immediately chased by other bounty hunters and police. while running, he catches sight of a wanted poster, featuring someone with a face that looks just like his...

he finds what he thinks is an old abandoned ship to hide in, but turns out this worn down hunk of metal is inhabited by a man named yakou furio and his band of misfit outlaws that are also hiding from the fuzz. they have a big panic upon meeting, but all calm down and ask their newest guest how he got here. after giving his long winded explanation, number one gets accepted into the crew, and they name him yuma, after fubuki endearingly mispronounced the term U.M.A. (Unidentified Monstrous Animal, the thing the crew initially mistook yuma for).

the nda are all different types of aliens too! yakou is of a carnivorous race from a planet that's always raining. desuhiko is from a shapeshifting race of aliens that often blend into other planet populations. fubuki is a 4th dimensional time being, encased in a robotic body so she can interact with the lower plane creatures. halara is basically a furry from a planet ruled by anthropomorphic mammals (they look like some sort of gray fox). and vivia is like danny phantom- a guy who only half died thanks to a wormhole warp accident, so he can travel between spiritual and physical planes and cause anomalies. they've all got their own crimes and past, but they're all good people. will i ever draw them? hopefully someday!

anyway, this kinda plays out like a humorous, episodic show in which the crew go on odd jobs and missions to scrape by, all while trying to not get hunted as bounty targets. eventually things would get intense when they get attacked by a huge ship that's manned by a masked man... and this masked man seems to have it out for yuma, specifically. who is he? why is he attacking? whatever will this band of misfits do?!

i guess we'll have to find out next episode...

(or you can send any asks about this au. i WILL infodump abt it)

[frangipani-wanderlust]

How To Call 911

So most of my followers know now that I started working last May as a 911 dispatcher. Super proud of myself. And now that I am starting (very much still starting) to settle in a bit, I want to offer some tips on how to call 911. So, hold on to your hats.

(no-color version if the yellow text isn't rendering on your screen correctly)

When in doubt, call 911. Don't take this as me encouraging you to jump at shadows. Your neighbors' loud party is not an emergency, google the local non-emergency line and call that. Neither is the dry cleaning not giving you your clothes (I actually got this call on our 911 line). Nor is the fact that you saw a fox inside city limits (also something a real human called 911 about). But if you see a situation unfolding and you think "this seems dangerous, maybe this is 911-worthy" then it's 911-worthy. Don't hesitate. Call.

If you call 911 and you are freaking out, that's okay. If you're in a crisis, you may not remember a single tip I'm about to give you. We are trained for that, we can handle it, just do the best you can. It's not the end of the world to have a hysterical or frightened caller, and these are tips, not rules.

Location, location, location. We can't send you help if we have nowhere to send it to. Ideally, know the address. Failing that, know the name of a business or a church or an intersection. It is not cheating if you read this off a sign. There isn't a set of invisible rules that says you have to have your exact GPS coordinates memorized. Be prepared to describe the location somehow. That way, if our connection drops and that's all you can tell me, I can still send some police out to come find out what's going on and they can ask for medics or firefighters or whatever if needed. But we absolutely must know where to send assistance, it is the first thing we're going to ask.

Location again, but with a twist. The first thing our office says for emergencies is, "911, what is the address of the emergency?" If a building is on fire, tell us where the fire is. If your neighbors are being robbed at gunpoint across the street, give us their address. If you witnessed a car accident, tell us where the accident happened. The location of the emergency isn't necessarily the location where you are. Don't send police and fire to your office building if the wreck is on the freeway.

Answer the questions that you are asked. If the calltaker asks "Is the patient breathing?" don't start in about the seizure they just had (if they aren't breathing, the seizure they just had is not the biggest problem). If the calltaker asks, "Which way did the man you saw go when they ran?" don't tell them about how they broke down your door (if they are running away, knowing they broke your door down does not help the police know which direction to start looking). The particular question you are asked is being asked for a reason, and that reason is not frivolous but in an emergency, we aren't going to stop and explain everything.

Do not launch into a speech. If you're asked a yes/no question, yes or no is all the answer you should give. Your impulse will be to explain the yes or the no because more information is better than not enough, but overexplaining is its own problem. Now, we are hired for good typist skills, and are encouraged to get better and faster, but infodumping means things can get missed. The calltaker is going to have some information they're going to ask for by protocol and probably the option to drill down on some of it if clarification is needed. If you spend five paragraphs explaining your last answer, it delays getting other pertinent information.

Do not launch into a speech, part the second. You don't call 911 for things that happened last week, or even yesterday. Tell me the emergency that is happening right now. Ideally in one sentence. If someone is having a medical issue, and you call 911 about it, when the calltaker asks exactly what happened, do not tell them about how the patient had a surgery 5-and-a-half weeks ago. You called 911. What is the emergency that is happening right now. Don't be telling me about their surgery when the problem you called about is a broken leg. Yes, the surgery may have led to generalized loss of balance that has yet to return which caused the patient to fall which caused them to break their leg. Understood. But you didn't call because of all of that. You called because of the broken leg. Apply this principle to all emergencies.

Don't launch into a speech, part the third. When asked a specific and direct question, do not give an explanation instead of an answer. If the calltaker asks you "Is the weird person on the side of the road actually in the lanes of traffic?" do not explain to them how it's a very narrow roadway (see parenthesis for the story here). Aside from the fact that we're not asking these questions to be funny (see part the second), there's also the fact that now you are coming over as suspicious as hell. If I asked "how did that person on Facebook know what this supposedly missing kid is wearing and where he's going to be at 3:00 today?" and you say "well Facebook is a good way to spread information" I am now extremely suspicious of you.

(Also an actual call I have taken. The man was a totally ordinary guy out for a walk to the store, but this blue collar man walked through a Rich Person Neighborhood™ and according to Lady Catherine De Bourgh on the phone with me, that merited a call to the police. When I asked her if he was actually in the lanes of traffic [traffic hazard call type] versus not [suspicious person call type, on a technicality but technically...], she tried explaining three times that the road was narrow before she finally got the message that I was not going to stop asking until she told me the actual answer and answered "Well, I suppose so, yes." At this point, because she'd been so reluctant to answer me, I no longer believed the man actually was in the lanes of traffic and to this day believe that she lied to try and manipulate the police into a stronger-level response than was actually warranted. Because determining whether she was lying for sure is beyond the scope of my job, I put down what she said, but I didn't believe then and still don't believe now, that she told the truth. The totally ordinary and probably very nice guy was not arrested or hassled at all and was instead given a courtesy ride to the store.)

Be prepared to describe relevant people, maybe including yourself, and that includes race. If you have an asthma attack at a football game, the medics need to know how to find you in a crowd. If you are a black woman, that's gonna rule out everyone who isn't that. If you are a black woman wearing a yellow shirt, blue jeans, and a blue bandana over your hair, that excludes nearly everybody and when the medics arrive, they'll know exactly who to look for. Most of the time, someone's race isn't relevant information. When describing someone to emergency services, it absolutely is and it is not racist to accurately describe the relevant person or people.

There are more tips in the world, and I may come back to this post and add them as they occur to me. In the meantime, please enjoy this short treatise on how to call 911.

[copperbadge]

Custom Wax Stamps

banesidhe

Would you be willing to share the source for custom stamps? I also do these and have had a hard time finding stamps with what I want on them

Oh sure! I hope it's okay that I pulled this out into its own post, I didn't want to spam the OP on the other. Apologies in advance if you know any of what I'm about to say, I'm just going to infodump and I want to make sure I don't miss anything. I will say that the process was smooth and pretty painless for me, much more so than I expected.

As preface, if you haven't been to the Craspire website, they have acres of stamps for very cheap, and I think the vast majority of sellers on Amazon/Ebay/Etsy actually just dropship from Craspire. If you're looking for variety, I'd definitely look there. (If you have, again, apologies, it just took me a while to find it and I spent more than I should have on a couple of my stamps before I started buying direct from them, so I like to make sure I mention it.)

There are a ton of shops on Etsy offering custom stamps, with wildly varying prices -- when I was doing research I saw one that was $55 for just the stamp, and another that was $30 because you couldn't buy the stamp without a starter-kit bundled in (furnace, spoon, wax). Definitely don't pay that much. I didn't get super exhaustive with my research because I couldn't really find a better price than a shop that I'd already done business with, and I knew they were reliable, so I just stuck with them. The shop is PraeyDesigns -- they have reasonable rates overall and everything I've bought from them has been good quality, so they're one of my go-tos for both stamps and wax (there's cheaper wax available but I like their selection). They offer a number of different sales pages for custom seals, so I'll link direct to this one, the one I purchased.

On that page, the third image lists the sizes they offer -- I bought the 3cm oval because I needed it "long" to accommodate the tail on my image. For reference, most larger stamps you buy prefab are 4cm rounds, most of the smaller stamps are 3cm rounds; that particular page only offers up to 3cm but PraeyDesigns does have other custom stamp pages that offer 4cm. In any case, it looks like the page just offers you the chance to pick from a variety of designs, but they do explicitly offer custom engraving from your own image; under "add your personalization" you should give the size head you want and then say, "I have an image for a design, please message and I will send it to you."

They reached out about 24 hours after I purchased, through Etsy, and asked for the image; this is what I sent them, also through Etsy's messenger function, and the result:

I'm given to understand that they generally have to retrace the image regardless of size or quality to turn it into a vector, so they can take a fairly low-res image and do a lot with it, but I tried to give them as clean a JPG as I could to work with. While the result is not absolutely identical, for an engraving smaller than a quarter it's pretty damn accurate and I think most of the minor shifts in design were for clarity's sake.

But I was pleased it really was that simple -- I bought the item, they said "Please send the design", I sent it, they confirmed they had it, and I didn't hear from them again until they sent me the shipping notification. Potentially if you don't have as clean an image they might need to talk to you about issues with the design, so I would make sure you have a very clean-line black-and-white image to send, but they seem pretty competent and they do good work.

Love to see what you get if you end up getting one! Definitely tag me. :)

[brotherblaze]

weedkiller —miguel o'hara

summary: LYLA likes categorizing what you and Miguel have as 'too close to be friends' because Miguel doesn't let his friends make themselves at home in his office.

word count: 2,2k

warnings: n/a

a/n: thank you @starrysatoru for listening to me ramble about Miguel & lyla and all the other wips i infodump at you🥹

“Hey, Miguel.”

“Not now, LYLA.”

LYLA scrunches her nose at Miguel’s dismissal. She’s hovering over his shoulder while he’s discussing (more like lecturing) the matter of not letting a villain blow up the Parliament, no matter how shitty the British institution. Hobie doesn’t seem all that enthused about what Miguel thinks. Gwen just looks like she’s hoping for the ground to swallow her whole.

“I wasn’t gonna say anything interesting anyway,” LYLA cuts in with as much passive-aggressiveness as she can find in her code and makes a note to ask if it can be dialed up. “Just that Anti-Venom’s day ended like an hour ago.”

Miguel cuts himself off mid-sentence and his eyes shoot to the clock LYLA is oh-so helpfully projecting for him. She revels in seeing the panic blooming in his eyes, the stuttering of his vitals, and the subtle hitch in his breathing.

He’s beyond late to pick you up.

“Where are they now?” He’s scrambling for something. Something that doesn’t make it seem like he forgot. She can’t wait to see where this goes next.

“On the elevator.” LYLA jerks her head towards the door. This might be the closest thing to glee she’ll ever get to experience so she makes sure to soak up every moment. 

Miguel runs a hand down his face. The sigh that escapes him rattles his whole frame and she takes a snapshot of the moment to tuck away for the future.

“Call one of the reserved spider-bots. I want it up here ASAP.”

“Wow, you’re really buying their forgiveness with imported candy? Wanna get a white van while you’re at it, too?” She raises a brow, arms crossed over her chest like she hadn’t set a spider-bot on hold the moment Miguel first dismissed her. Because she’s an amazing assistant who gets her boss out of trouble.

“LYLA!”

“Yeah, yeah.” She waves him off like he’s a pest. She’d hauled ass to get those candies imported and now Miguel is using them as apology fodder because he dismissed LYLA’s routine reminder that your day was ending at exactly 5:45 PM.

Come next semester, she considers invading your university’s system and redoing the class schedules to maximize your time at HQ just to get Miguel to chill. 

The door slides open and you pause in the doorway when you notice Miguel is not alone. Your fingers tighten around the edges of the pizza box in your hands. “Should I come back later?”

“No, no, you’re fine.” Miguel motions you inside and you allow the long metal arm sprouting from the ceiling to wrap itself around your waist. It carries you over the room to Miguel like a very disgruntled cat and he holds his hand out to help you balance when you’re deposited on the podium next to him. “Why didn’t you call?”

“LYLA said you were busy.” You sink into your usual chair and place the pizza box on your lap. It’s still warm. “She also said you haven’t eaten since breakfast.”

Miguel sends LYLA a look. She sticks her tongue out at him.

You clear your throat to disengage them and hand Miguel a slice of pizza between a napkin.

“Gracias, mi luz.” He motions towards your captive audience with his free hand. “Hobie, Earth-138. You’ve met Gwen.”

You hum. “Again with the numbers.”

“How do you hate numbers, you’re studying programming.”

“You’d be surprised.” You wave to Gwen and Hobie. “Nice to meet you.”

Gwen waves back while Hobie merely nods in greeting.

“How’s a wanker like him know someone like you?” Hobie asks—he’s immediately jabbed in the ribs by Gwen’s elbow and a hiss of ‘stop’ under her breath.

You raise a brow.

“That a compliment or an insult?”

Hobie shrugs.

“Oye,” Miguel warns. You jab your foot against his shin.

“Alchemax,” you say. “I used to intern there when I was still studying biochem. Didn’t work out so I no longer intern there.”

“Uh, so, what do you do now? If I may ask.” Gwen hastily adds that last part like she doesn’t want to bother you. Her movements are jerky. She’s nervous. You look at Miguel and raise a brow, then turn back to Gwen.

“Oh, you’re in trouble,” LYLA whispers into his ear. Miguel swats her away.

“I study programming.” You jerk your head towards Miguel. “My first-year internships used to run until what, 11 PM, midnight-ish? And he didn’t want me going home alone that late, so he picked me up. Then we kept doing it for convenience’s sake.”

“And today he forgot.” Hobie shakes his head with a tsk. “Ignored the A.I., actually, by the way. Deplorable.” He looks towards Miguel. “What do you have to say for yourself?”

All eyes turn to Miguel. He glares back at Hobie. “I’m not explaining myself to a 12-year-old.”

You snort. “Remember that one jackass who threw a tantrum when I told him I was the intern and not the babysitter?” You look back down and hold out your hands, palms facing the ground. “Literally on his hands and knees crying in the middle of the hallway while his kid is standing there watching—god, I wish I had pictures.”

Miguel covers his mouth with a closed fist to hide the chuckle that escapes him. “His wife was divorcing him, by the way.”

Now you actually laugh. “I would’ve too.”

Miguel looks at the spiderlings below. “Fill out your mission reports by tonight. And no more blowing up the Parliament. You’re dismissed.”

Hobie opens his mouth to say something but Gwen has him by the scruff of his jacket before he has a chance to voice his opinion and quickly drags him out of the room. The door slides shut behind them and silence fills the room. It’s not uncomfortable by any means, both of you working on devouring your slice of pizza.

Even LYLA is sitting on your lap, munching on her own little pixelated slice of pizza.

“By the way,” you begin through a mouthful. You pause and swallow before continuing, “You busy tomorrow?”

“I don’t know yet.” He reaches to pick up another slice and you watch him devour it in three bites.

“Dude, are you even enjoying the food?” You deadpan. “I just… realized I haven’t seen so many old horror movies, and I wanna watch them. But not alone.”

“Scared?” He raises an eyebrow, wiping his fingers in a napkin.

“No. Just kinda lame to watch them alone. Was thinking of like, Carrie, maybe—speaking of horror movies: what’s stopping you from dressing like 80s horror movie hunks?” You rest your elbow on the chair armrest and your chin against your knuckles. One leg is sprawled out to chase off the oncoming pins and needles.

“What?”

“A nice crop top, short shorts, or low-rise jeans…” You shrug your shoulders but don’t look away from him.

“I’m 6’9”, do you know what a pain in the ass buying pants is?”

“So? Just saying you’d look really good.” You allow your eyes to slowly slide down his body and then back up again. “Like,” you begin again, almost breathlessly, “really, really good.”

“Yeah?” He leans over you, one hand on his hip, the other gripping the back of your chair. “You think so?”

Your mouth dries up abruptly and swallowing feels like someone’s scooped sand into your mouth. So, you only hum.

“What, cat got your tongue?” His voice has dropped and you can feel the warmth he radiates.

“Yeah.” Your voice cracks and heat floods into your face and you feel like you’re a volcano about to erupt. There’s a hollowness in your chest, a fuzzy, messy ball of feelings bouncing around your ribcage, and a tingle in your right leg and—

Oh, that’s a pinched nerve, not oncoming pins and needles, you belatedly realize. You tap on Miguel’s wrist to push it off the chair’s backrest and let it fall flat to allow sprawling out for comfort.

“You okay?” Miguel asks, hovering over your newly acquired horizontal position. You wince.

“Nerve pain again.”

“LYLA, have the infirmary send a heat pack up.”

“On it.” She materializes on your chest and suddenly you realize you hadn’t seen her blink away.

Miguel crouches next to your chair, fingers hovering over your skin. “Where does it hurt?”

“Hip.” You tap the spot with a finger, then return to willing the pain away until the heat pack arrives. Whoever said mind over matter better be right.

“Well, considering I’ve seen you sleep like a pretzel…” 

“You sleep on your back like the fucking dead, dude.”

Miguel gently presses his fingers against your hip and the fabric of your jeans melts away enough for him to reach skin. His hand is warm. “Symbiote as pants,” he states, the corners of his lips curled slightly upwards. “That’s new.”

“Now, which one of us uses unstable molecule fabric as their whole spider-suit?” You let your eyes flutter shut, taking slow, deep breaths to cope with the stabbing pain under your skin. “Plus, this is the one pair of white pants in the whole world that will never get dirty, or be see-through.”

“Oh yeah,” LYLA appears again, as if she’s remembering something important, “hey, Miguel? I could use a new outfit.”

“What?” Miguel tears his eyes from you to look at his A.I. assistant like she’s grown a second head. For a moment, LYLA entertains the idea of having you modify her code to make that possible.

“Or seven.” She shrugs her shoulders. “Y’know what, the more the merrier.”

“You can just download them off the internet.”

“So?”

“I’m busy; I can’t just drop everything to give you new clothes when you can do it yourself.”

“But you do it so well!”

“LYLA—”

“Good boys who do what their A.I. asks get rewarded.” LYLA holds up a finger. “Now, shh, listen.”

She begins a list of items she would like, specifying colors and patterns, accessories—even a car. You stifle your laughter at her demands and glance toward Miguel. Despite his grumpy demeanor, you know he’s listening intently, interjecting every now and then for clarification.

It’s reminiscent of the Miguel you knew before he became Spider-Man. The man who had lunch with you at Alchemax (even though you were just a lowly intern) and who listened to you talk about the chemical compounds Venom and its siblings and offsprings produced without rudely interrupting. Even now, in the midst of his verbal sparring-turned-hostage situation, there’s the ghost of a smile creeping up on his features.

You’re drawn from the reverie when the sound of spider-bots skittering across the floor draws your attention. One parks next to Miguel and opens the container on its back. Miguel grabs the heatpack and presses it against your hip. Anti-Venom forms around it, keeping it glued to your side. One of the metal arms hanging from the ceiling collects the empty pizza box from your lap.

A second spider-bot parks in front of you once your chair is upright again and you slide off, kneeling on front of the bot on the floor. The hatch in its back opens with a chirp, exposing a handful of colorfully wrapped candies. All familiar. 

“You had them imported all the way here?” You reach in and retrieve the candy, staring at the collection in your hand as if it’s the 8th wonder of the world. “I—I never even thought of checking if they export.” When you look up, Miguel is avoiding your gaze. The tips of his ears are burning, as indicated by LYLA on your Gizmo.

“He spent an ungodly amount of time agonizing over what flavors to get.”

“LYLA.” Miguel pinches the bridge of his nose, effectively hiding his whole face from you.

“Thank you.”

He doesn’t look at you but he does grunt out an acknowledgment.

The silence that follows feels a little prickly and you frown. Not prickly, per se, but… awkward, maybe.

“Are you uh…” you lick your lips and nod toward the screens hovering a few feet away. “Do you have work you have to get back to? ‘Cause I should get on with my homework.”

“Oh, uh—” Miguel glances back at the screens as you stand, pocketing the candy in your hand. “Yeah. I’ll drop you off.”

“Can I maybe stay?” You venture to ask. “Watch you work when I’m done?”

“You… want to watch me work?” You nod. “You’ll get bored.”

“But you look so pretty when you’re doing stuff I don’t understand.”

Heat floods your face and you clamp your jaw shut. You’re sure your heart skips several beats at once and suddenly you’re praying to be sent to the infirmary. No such luck and so, you slowly lower yourself onto your usual chair again to get on with your homework.

Miguel opens and closes his mouth a few times like a gaping fish before he finally closes it. A few beats of silence and then—

“Tú serás mi muerte,” he mumbles as he returns to whatever he does with the million screens he always has open. Maybe you should ask one day, but not this day.

LYLA appears in front of you, glowing a warm yellow. Maybe she should’ve asked for a new display color, too. She stares at you over her pink heart-shaped frames. 

“Wow, smooth.”

part two.