Arapaima My Beloved...

sometimes im like "wow holy shit im being really fucking annoying. i should stop talking" and then i pull out my magic 8 ball and it says "youve always been annoying and your friends chose to talk you anyways. youll be fine" and im like wow thanks magic 8 ball. and then the ogre attacks me

People often say to me: “You draw like some kind of inhuman machine.  If I eat your brain, will I gain your power?”  The answer is yes, but there is another way. The key to precise drawing is building up muscle memory so that your arm/hand/fingers do the things you want them to do when you want them to do them.  Teaching yourself to draw a straight line or to make sweet curves is just a matter of practice and there are some exercises you can do to help improve. If you’re going to be doodling in class or during meetings anyway, why not put that time to good use?

definitive list of things it’s okay to deadname:

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gulf of mexico

the bloodstained lake... audio from the ghost stories dub

Well, it's my Bday!

As a present to myself, I'm hopefully gonna start posting again! I stopped for a lot of reasons, but I also really want to start posting again so! Here I am!

Probably won't be doing like scheduled posts but we will see!

Whats clan legacies? Am i write in guessing that is a wc game? Where can i play it?

oh boy i get to talk about cl more

clan legacies is a fan-made warrior cats dice game.  essentially, you create your own little clan and roll a bunch of dice to see what happens.  you can make your own rules and consequences and junk for each game.

personally, i tend to use a d&d dice system for my game.  i roll a d20 for an event, and some events require me to get out a d4 or d6.

i realize this isn’t really.. explaining? the game?? but there’s so many things to talk about with it that this post is gonna be super duper long, so that’s my simple answer.  rules & junk are under the cut, if you want to know more or play yourself.

Step 1: Create a Clan.

You can create each Clan member individually, or use a generator to get a random bunch.  The members must include 1 leader, 1 deputy, 1 healer, 1 healer app, 5-15 warriors, 2-6 apprentices, 0-3 queens, 0-4 kits for each queen, and 0-3 elders.  Make a list resembling an allegiance to keep track of your Clan.

Step 2: Create a Doc.

A document helps keep track of the events that happen.  Try to include most of the following for each cat: age, gender, rank, appearance, apprentice/mentor, mate/crush, parents/siblings, and kits.

Step 3: Keep up to date.

I like to check in on my Clans at least once a day, so I generally have one day = one moon.

Mates/Kits

If you want to make a couple, generate a number.  If even, then you can pick two cats to become mates.  If odd, you must wait until tomorrow to try again.

If you want a pair of mates to have kits, generate a number.  If even, the she-cat is pregnant.  If odd, you must wait until tomorrow to try again.

New Cats

When the number of cats in your Clan drops below 10, you can generate a number every 7 days to see if any outsiders join.  Odd means now, even means yes.  If you get an even number, roll a d6 to see how many cats will join.

Misc. Info

Kits take 3 - 4 moons to be born from when you’re first expecting.

Kits are 0 - 5 moons.

Apps are 6 - 14 moons, based on a number roll.  Once they’re 11 moons old, you can start rolling to see if they’ll have their warrior ceremony.  An even roll means yes, an odd role means to try again tomorrow.  They automatically earn their warrior name at 14 moons old.

Healer apps are 6 - 15 moons.  Once they’re 15 moons old, you can start rolling to see if they’ll have their healer ceremony.  An even roll means yes, an odd role means to try again tomorrow.  They automatically earn their full name at 20 moons old.

Warriors are 12 - 149 moons (some become warriors sooner than others).

Elders are 150 - 200 moons.  At 200 moons old, start rolling.  If even, they live for another day.  If odd, they die of old age.

Leaders and deputies are considered warriors.

Crushes and mates are decided by you.

1 - A predator attacks your camp!  Roll a die- if  the number is odd, then someone dies (roll to see who).  If even, then everyone is safe.

2 - New arrivals!  Cat/s from outside the Clan are interested in joining.  Roll a d4 to see how many!

3 - Twolegs!  Roll a die- if  the number is odd, a cat is taken (roll to see who).  If even, then everyone is safe.

4 - Love is in the air! Roll to see who the new couple is!

5 - Sickness!  Roll a d6 to see how many cats get sick, then roll a die- if  the number is odd, half the cats die.  If even, then everyone survives!

6 - Rescue mission!  Generate a number depending on how many cats have gone missing in the past 3 moons.  The resulting number is how many cats manage to find their way home.

7 - A rogue kills a cat.  Generate a number!  If it’s between 1 and 4, you’ve lost a kit, between 5 and 30, it’s an apprentice, 31-90, you’ve lost a warrior/deputy/leader life, and 91-100, you’ve lost an elder.

8 - Where’d these kits come from?  Roll a d6 to see how many kits were found during a patrol.

9 - Flood!  Roll a die.  If it’s odd, 2 - 5 cats die (roll to see who and how many).  If it’s even, then everyone survives!

10 - Their training is going great!  Roll to see how many apprentices get to become warriors early.

11 - Prey shortage!  Roll a number.  If odd, 2 - 5 cats die (roll to see who and how many).  If even, then everyone survives! 

12 - What promising kits!  Roll to see how many kits get to become apprentices early.

13 - Enemy Clan attack!  Roll a number between 1 and 9.  That amount of cats will die.

14 - Kits on the way!  Roll to see how many she-cats are pregnant.

15 - A warrior dies of an unknown cause.  Generate a number between 1 and the total amount of warriors in your Clan.  The cat corresponding to the resulting number dies.

16 - What a peaceful day!  No events happen.

17 - A whole patrol goes missing!  Generate four numbers.  The cats corresponding to those numbers are gone.

18 - A gift from StarClan!  For the next two days, the number of lives lost is cut in half.

19 - Accident at the river!  Generate a number between 1 and the total amount of warriors and apprentices in your Clan.  The cat corresponding to the resulting number dies.

20 - Surprise kits!  Pick one of your queens and roll a d4 to see how many kits she has.

Yamada tried to cheat one too many times, so he lost shuffling privileges.

Reblog if its ok to spam you with boops

Other people's emotions are deep and complex and beautiful but mine are proof that there is rot at the core of my being

7/4/20: On Lilapsophobia

A few days ago, I learned the term "extinction burst." For one thing, it's now on my list of Potential Album Titles Referencing Terminology Used To Describe Grand Dyings, which is a longer list than you might think, especially for someone who doesn't have a band. It's up there with phrases like "Lazarus taxon" and "high place phenomenon." A species turning up after being presumed extinct, the seemingly sourceless urge to jump when faced with a cliff edge. Things disappearing, but not fading. They go out wilder than that.

An extinction burst doesn't, in fact, have to do with the extinction of species at all. I learned it from a video on dog training. I should say I learned the phrase itself that way, because I've known about the concept for awhile, because I am my own bad dog. An extinction burst occurs when you're trying to break an animal of a bad habit and it gets worse before it gets better. At first it only seems to bark louder or pull harder at the leash, trying to use the only way it knows to get what it wants. The first step in training the begging or the braying out of a dog is to break it of the belief that there is no other way.

Today, I paced around the coffee table for twenty minutes and felt my insides stirring with every rumble of thunder. I wished I'd had pointed ears that I could lay back flat and a long tongue that quivered with hot, humid hyperventilation. I wished for a den. But what I did was leave foot-sweat on the living room hardwood and think how, if I heard the tornado sirens, I would have to walk straight and sound level when I faced my roommate to tell him that we should go to the underground laundry room.

I understand dogs better than people, and I'm no exception. I understand myself better as a dog than as a person, and a little dog at that--a Chihuahua or maybe some small terrier, something that shakes for no reason. It doesn't make sense to me that I always feel the urge to take the train north just to avoid an oncoming storm they've seen on the radar. (As I hope everyone knows, just about any form of transport is a death trap in a twister, and you're better off lying down in a ditch than trying to outrun one.) But I don't question it when I hear about pets bolting at the sound of fireworks. No one does. That's the thing about a dog hiding under the bed every Fourth of July until the end of its days. The fact that the noise has never actually hurt the dog will not teach it to fear less. As far as it's concerned, every time it's been worried about the boom, it's ultimately been safe. Worrying, then, is the only way.

The cold front's now just about passed, and there was no tornado. They haven't even issued a warning for the area today--certainly didn't during the couple hours I curled up on the floor of the tub with the Accuweather app and twenty nigh-empty shampoo bottles. Believe it or not, I'm getting better. As a kid, I'd start watching the Weather Channel for a couple hours daily beginning in March and memorize the weekly forecast from their Local on the 8's. That way, if they projected a severe weather event, I'd be able to start stockpiling throw pillows in the basement bathroom as soon as possible, should they be needed for head coverings--most fatal injuries in a tornado occur from flying or falling debris to the head, I internally recited over and over again. I'd also matter-of-factly let my parents know ahead of time to cancel any plans they had for going outside at any point during that day. A supercell could spin up at any time in an unstable atmosphere, I'd inform. But they usually did not see fit to stay home from their jobs.

Now it's not such a process. Sometimes, these days, I can go all the way up until the day of a severe storm before the anxiety starts to make me nauseated. Then I'm happy to sit with my bicycle helmet snug at my side, waiting to bolt into the innermost room of my dwelling.

Besides, I like the tub. We should've never stopped living in tight little dens. I like to curl up with my knees to my chest on the porcelain and wonder if they make ThunderShirts for people.

I refresh the radar map. Dread comes in rainbow blobs. If I'm watching for it, it can't get me, says something that's lived inside me since I knew how to feel fear. It's the same primitive something that used to tell me the shadow in my childhood closet wouldn't come to life if I stayed up all night to stare it down. I worry the way some people pray. There's ritual to it, repeated refrains and lines of thought. There's vigilance. Sometimes I feel like the people around me, Sinners in the Hands of a Mesocyclone, aren't sufficiently aware of the wrath coming their way, so I do their worrying for them, too, watch out for them. These days, I only believe in a Higher Being at my worst moments, and only one who wants retribution. Earlier, during a lull in the thunder, I ventured briefly from the tub in the notably windowless space and pulled out my eyelashes in front of the bathroom mirror with all the solemnity and intention of one saying a decade of the rosary.

Sometimes I train myself, though not as consistently as I should. When the nasty storms come, when I can bear it, sometimes I sit with my back to the windows. I don't even check the radar. I go about my business and ignore the sensation of a gnawing at my ribs, the pacing and panting of my heart behind the bars. I know, and have known for years, that a tiny percentage of storms are supercells, and of those that are, only some drop funnels at all, and of those that do, a small fraction are strong enough to do real damage. If I sit through enough of them like this and nothing happens, then I'll be desensitized to the onset of severe storms altogether. If you can train a hunting dog to not flinch at the sound of a gunshot, then I should at least be able to do this. Right now, though, it's getting worse before it gets better. Something bursting from me.

Some say the thing you fear in this life is the thing that killed you in the last, and "you had an epic death," a friend of mine once told me. I can't deny the romance in it. When an EF5 sweeps anchor-built homes off their foundations, never mind the people inside them, they're said to be taken "aloft," high into the sky. A grand dying indeed, to become weightless in the roaring air. I think anyone who pictures that believes, on some level, that those people taken aloft will never hit the ground again. They might, in fact, not, at least not all in one retrievable piece, since deaths tend to occur through impaling or dismemberment by other flying debris midair. Still, romantic. The Tri-State Tornado, the deadliest in US history, is so named because it went all the way from Missouri to Indiana but spent most of it's time crossing through Illinois to get there. As a young Illinoian child, I took this to mean that my state was cursed, and by extension, so was I. It happened nearly 40 years before Doppler radar was widely used to forecast the weather, nearly 50 before the Fujita scale was instated. Back in 1925, I don't know what one would have thought upon seeing a wall of cloud and wind a mile wide stripping the very soil from the ground on its way toward you, save that it was armageddon at last. The world erased before your eyes, and the outer wall of your house blown out so you can bear full witness. That's what I'd call an extinction burst.

I once knew a family with dogs that would fetch pillows for guests who came through the door. They used to bark instead, but instead of being trained to simply not make noise, they were trained to do something else. They couldn't, after all, bark with a pillow in their mouths, and they'd be less inclined to anyway, while they were focused on retrieving them. Everyone knows that, given nervous energy, it's much easier to channel it into something else than to try smothering it.

I love dogs better than people, myself included. I know there are no bad dogs. I've been learning to be a storm spotter. If you're registered as one, you can report weather phenomena to your local NOAA office, and those reports are spread through meteorology networks, improving the minute-by-minute forecasting. It's nice, learning just how to spot a wall cloud or report hail size. It's nice, specifically, watching for those things in order to do something rather than to torment myself. I can't not track the weather, I don't think. But I can watch it with purpose. I can hold the clouds nicely between my teeth.