you get used to it

HI!! I'm Noel (or Arbor, whatever) and sometimes I draw things and sometimes I talk about my dogs or fish and most of the time I am yelling with various stages of coherency about even more things. It is tons of fun. I keep most of my reblogs over onto a sideblog, but sometimes I just want to talk about things here. I try to be super mindful of my tags - if I ever post anything and I'm missing a tag that you want me to use, please don't hesitate to let me know!

[sunderwight]

Mulan AU where she does get caught by the other fresh recruits while she's bathing but Mushu helps her spin it like the lake is cursed by an evil lizard demon and will turn men into women if they stay in it for too long.

From there it's not actually difficult to get the other soldiers onboard with covering up the fact that poor Ping took one for the team and got afflicted by the vagina curse, especially since it would have been all of them if they hadn't gotten the warning ahead of time. So they agree to help him cover it up, because obviously the army's not going to understand.

Shang is... tentatively glad that the men are bonding and getting along, even if they continue to be deeply weird about it.

[great-art-and-a-purple-tongue]

Ling: Hey man, what's up— you've got boobs?!?!

Mulan: Uh, what boobs? Huh? Where did these come from?

Mushu: *facepalms and thinks quickly* (speaks from the shadows) I AM THE SPIRIT OF THE LAKE! BEWARE MY CURSED WATERS FOR THEY WILL TURN MEN INTO WOMEN!

Ling, Yao, and Chien Po: Oh no! The spirit of the cursed waters!

[scribeofchaos]

Chi-Fu: SHE'S A WOMAN LI SHANG!

Mulan: Look-

Ling, Yao, and Chien Po: WE CAN EXPLAIN!!

[One convoluted, chaotic explanation later]

Shang: ...is this why you've all been insisting we don't camp anywhere that doesn't have a lake.

Shang: and then none of you actually swim in it.

Shang: and you all keep jumping at shadows.

Shang: wait a second Ping did this happen before or after you became insanely good at fighting?

Shang: did you get better at fighting after you became a woman.

Shang: are women better at fighting than us.

Mulan: ....uh. well. maybe? no one's ever tried to find out.

Yao: [thinking very fast] y'know Captain it's just so hard to find recruits these days.

Chien Po: Real shortage of men.

Ling: Lots of women, though.

Mulan: [catching on] Without marriage prospects.

Shang: You're right, men. The spirits must have done this in order to show us that we should be recruiting women as fighters.

Mushu [from the shadows, seeing an opportunity to do the funniest thing]: EXACTLY, LI SHANG. I HAVE TRANSFORMED PING INTO A WOMAN BECAUSE YOU HAVE TOO LONG OVERLOOKED THE TRUE WAY TO WIN THE WAR.

Mulan [seeing an opportunity to get all the stories straight]: O Great Spirit, is it reversible?

Mushu: WHY WOULD YOU WISH TO REJECT MY GIFT? I HAVE SEEN YOUR HEART, CHILD, AND HAVE ALREADY ALTERED THE MEMORIES OF EVERYONE WHO KNEW YOU BEFORE YOU LEFT FOR THE ARMY. YOU HAVE ALWAYS BEEN THEIR DAUGHTER.

Li Shang: Welp, the spirits have spoken. Ping - wait is your name still Ping if you're a woman now?

Mulan: Uh. Actually, I was thinking of renaming myself. How do you feel about Mulan?

BONUS:

Mulan [climbing out of the eleventh lake the men have arranged for her to swim in]: Yeah no, it didn't work. Still got boobs. [tries to appear dejected].

Chien Po: If it makes you feel better, they're very nice boobs.

Mulan: Thanks, Chien Po.

[somestorythoughts]

Mulan and Mushu, somehow opperating on the same wavelength: oh haven't you heard?

[awkwardarbor]

So mad and offended at a horror book being so spectacularly bad and pointless and feeling like it wasted every minute of my time that I spent with it that I was laughing at the end because what else can you do but laugh at the absurdity

[kingcatnine]

can you reblog and tell me which of your ocs has the stupidest name

[dragonomatopoeia]

some of the best characters are the ones where you know if they sat down and discussed ghosts the conversation would end with them attacking each other with furniture

[dragonomatopoeia]

like this

[awkwardarbor]

I am so outrageously defensive over the Dallas Wyland Whaling Wall. News articles talking about it (tl;dr Fifa painted over a mural thats 27?? years old without full permission and everyone is big mad about it. I am so big mad about it) that are ALSO like "this is outrageous and offensive" keep saying completely minor lines with the writer's opinion of the mural, and it isn't complimentary and I'm just like SHUT UP. IT IS ICONIC. IT WAS BEAUTIFUL. WHO ARE YOU TO SAY IT WAS NEITHER OF THOSE THINGS!!!

Apparently this mural was my son and I cannot stand to hear a single negative word about him. You learn new things about yourself every day

[lhoandbehold]

The full saga of Margie and the Nuns (so far). Realised I never compiled these in one place.! Also, bonus Margies!

[awkwardarbor]

I started reading Haunting of Hill House. I'm real early on - Eleanor has just arrived at the eponymous house. She's got her first look at it, and is like oh, ew. gross. icky. (I paraphrase, obviously,) shes never seen a house more awful and clearly evil and full of The Bad! But then shes like welp! Gotta go inside because if I leave the gatekeeper will laugh at me and thats so much worse than an evil house built with evil.

i am endeared, but eleanor, my love, i think perhaps we should adjust our priorities.

[awkwardarbor]

"Oh hey a lot of hockey content is being pushed to your various algorithms. Did you read heated rivalry too?"

no at some point in 2025 I watched a video of a guy replacing the blade on the skate of a hockey player while imitating a nate the hoof guy video. I asked if that hurts the horse or not. I have not known peace since. I didn't know that commenting on one singular hockey related video was entering a pact from which I could not return.

I'm not mad about it. i just didn't know that hockey was a faerie circle.

[mousegirlheart]

[twilightofthesandwiches]

Hey! Spin this wheel of Every Pokémon!

This is now your Pokémon Partner. Whatever you would want to do in the Pokémon world, your Result goes with you. It would be your Ace in Battles and/or contests or they might just help you around with your regular Not-Inherently-Pokémon Job or just hang around your house as your beloved Pet. If you really really want to BE a Pokémon than this is the Pokémon you just turned into.

How are you feeling about it?

HELL YEAH!! THIS IS ONE OF MY FAVORITE POKEMON!!

OH!! I LOVE THIS POKEMON!!

Yeah, this Pokemon is great!!!

This Pokemon is good!!

This Pokemon is nice, but nothing more

...I mean, it could be better

This Pokemon is okay…

I have mixed feelings about this Pokemon…

Not bad, but I’m still kinda disappointed…

Well… it could be worse?

I mean, at least it’s better than NOT having a Pokemon, right?

OH NO THIS IS ACTUALLY WORSE!!

Voting ended onApr 3

[broken-academia]

i read CS Lewis’ A Grief Observed one time years ago and i’m still not recovered from it

[broken-academia]

— A Grief Observed: part i-ii, C.S. Lewis x

[giffingthingsss]

I need y'all to understand that he wrote this famous passage in the middle of her brief remission -

'Do not let your happiness depend on something you may lose.' 'Don’t put your goods in a leaky vessel.' 'Don’t spend too much on a house you may be turned out of.' There is no man alive who responds more naturally than I to such canny maxims. I am a safety-first creature. Of all arguments against love none makes so strong an appeal to my nature as “Careful! This might lead you to suffering”. There is no safe investment. To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket — safe, dark, motionless, airless — it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.

[awkwardarbor]

I have semi-regular crashouts about the taste of cucumber ever since learning that the normal flavor description for them is mild.

What do you mean, mild? What does that MEAN. Cucumber is sharp and tart. You bite into one and it makes those little spots under your tongue contract because its so tart. Not in a good way, like when you think about a lemon, but like. ...protectively.

Cucumber tastes significantly more strong than tomatoes, or egg, or cheese, or any other normal salad trapping that it might be paired with. It is an equally strong taste as a raw onion (sometimes less, often more, depending on how hot the onion is. I would much rather eat raw onion than cucumber... and often do, laughs.) You add vinegar to cucumber to make it taste less strong and become more tolerable. What do you MEAN its a mild taste. If you put cucumber in anything, that thing now tastes like cucumber. It is such a strong flavor.

I thought people added it to water when they didnt like water because its such a strong taste that it overpowers the water. What do you MEAN that not everyone ranks cucumber at like. an eight or nine on the strong taste scale.

If i get a salad and it has cucumber in it, I almost always eat the cucumber by itself because i can't taste anything else when cucumber is in the bite. (Or just leave the cucumber behind if i dont feel like eating it and dont have the right dressing to tone it down).

mild flavor. mild. mild??? mild????? i am a cat staring suspiciously at cucumbers when hearing the idea that they might be considered mild.

[awkwardarbor]

you know i have not had like. ...a solid, good year since 2016. I've been humming "this year" by the mountain goats as a determined anthem yearly since ...2014? It's been a rough decade.

Feels a bit early to be calling 2026 a wash but unfortunately can do that already. The events of these few weeks are irrevocably going to change who I am and colour the rest of my year with things I need to heal around. I feel like the last decade has been a series of who I am dying, and me mourning that person, and trying to carry on with the new person left behind, and then the cycle repeats.

I'm clawing tooth and nail to try and find somewhere that the joy can exist. Holding on by the skin of my gritted teeth, reminding myself that if joy is temporary then the sadness can also be temporary.

Things will be okay because there's never been a choice to do anything but be okay. But it's so unreasonably difficult.

[inkskinned]

hey if this storm ends up being as it looks, you need to take it seriously, particularly if you're in a southern state and not used to storms like this. i'm not a professional but my new england experience for losing power/etc is:

fill your bathtub with water before the power goes out. in an emergency where the pipes freeze, you'll have semi-clean water. you can use this water for your pets, to wash dishes, flush your toilet, and other small important stuff. if you have no bathtub, fill as large a bin/pot/etc as you can find.

air is the best insulator. if you can tape plastic over your windows and major drafts, it will genuinely help. (they have kits for it, but i've used trash bags and duct tape). blankets/tarps/etc also work. leave space between the covering and the window - the layer of air protects you. shove towels under your doors.

in a true emergency, you can ball up newspapers and shove them into your coats/pants/etc between your base layer and your coat. it won't be comfortable but it does insulate a little better.

have an emergency plan for your pets, particularly animals like reptiles that need constant heat to survive.

the weight of the snow and ice will be an issue. plan accordingly.

black ice is a bitch. if it looks "wet", assume it is frozen. actually just assume everything is frozen for a little while.

if you do not have a generator or other emergency power source, DO NOT bring outside-use heat sources (like propane stoves) inside. you can gas yourself and die.

instead, if you truly have no heat source: focus on insulating a small amount of space in your house - a few rooms - and bring as many bodies and supplies in there as possible. do not break insulation if you can avoid it. you are a ~100-degree object. make your safe space into a blanket fort. you may go stircrazy but it is better than freezing.

if you have a fireplace you never use, check the flue and the chimney before the storm holy shit. i am not kidding about this. do not just start a fire willy nilly. you will burn your house down.

relatedly, if you start a fire and notice smoke is billowing back into the house: stop the fire immediately. your flue is closed or your chimney is backed up. you will burn your house down.

keep the fridge closed as long as possible; it lets the air out. but honestly like, my family has used snow as a fridge a lot. stuff that needs to stay cool will be less of an issue than things that need to get warm. plan accordingly.

most canned things can be eaten cold, but check the label. if you have a little sterno fire, it can go a long way.

if you develop a headache and feel weirdly sleepy, you may be forced to open a window. you might have carbon monoxide poisoning.

every year people die while shoveling snow. it is actually not very safe as a chore tbh. you need to go slow and take lots of breaks. you should also 100% wait until the snow has actually passed, only because when it starts shifting and undoes all your work, it will piss you the hell off.

have drinking water somewhere easily accessible. a lot more of it than you think completely necessary tbh.

fill your gas tank. it will help prevent your lines from freezing.

if you have a battery-powered light that's not very strong, put it under a water jug, it'll throw more light. idk why it works but it works.

just because you know how to drive in the snow doesn't mean other people know how to drive in the snow. better to just not.

your device probably has a "low power mode". probably best to just keep it on asap rather than be taken by surprise tbh. the battery will last longer.

great news to fanfiction writers: it really is better if y'all take one bed and huddle together for warmth. do not strip out of your clothes, though, i have no idea who the hell decided that was the smart thing to do. you want to keep at least a layer of leggings and a tight shirt on. the goal is to find the fine line between "warm" and "sweating" - you want to stay as dry as possible for as long as possible.

your hair, eyelashes, and nosehairs can freeze. just from personal experience: try not to rub or touch them, it can snap your hair off and then you'll be very sad.

hypothermia is a lot faster and more evil than most people expect. watch for shivering, confusion, and unexplained exhaustion. if someone stops shivering, that is not always a good sign. if you think you/someone you love has hypothermia, warm them up slowly. often this is through rubbing/friction (or a heat source if available). keep them awake and try to feed them something.

same for frostbite: don't just shove your hands into a fire. warm any affected area slowly. fair warning, as the blood recirculates, it will hurt :(

those blue rubber examination gloves under other gloves can help even very-cold hands stay warm.

liquor is not a good idea to drink right now, sorry beloved. but vodka/rubbing alcohol does work as an excellent de-icer if you need something small done quickly (like a lock/door handle). it's just, like, expensive in comparison to other things lol

"i don't eat that much anyway i'll be fine" that's the devil talking. you will not be. you will also probably be burning way more calories than normal. let the soft animal of your body eat a bunch of delicious snacks.

good luck i love you stay warm out there everyone

[toytulini]

I believe prioritizing slow rewarming is outdated advice, but you do need to be careful about external heat sources bc your ability to accurately gauge if something is hot enough to burn you will be skewed. afaik currently you need to prioritize keeping them warm after the rewarming process has started, but they still dont know exactly why rewarming shock happens. for mild hypothermia, passive external rewarming, via getting them somewhere warm and dry, and giving them insulated clothes that are warm and dry,(moisture wicking is your friend! wool or synthetic.) that can be enough. you can use things like hot water bottles or heated blankets to help rewarm as well, but again, be careful to avoid burns, cos your temperature gauge is going to be way off.

If you have frostbite, absolutely do NOT rub it or otherwise apply friction in an attempt to warm it. you will cause more damage. frostbite is basically your body getting freezerburnt. it is ice crystals forming in your blood and tissues and causing mechanical damage. it is generally preceded by frostnip: "a paling or reddening of a body part as its blood vessels constrict that tingles, feels very cold, or simply feels numb."

Im just going to quote the wikipedia on frostbite treatment here:

"Individuals with frostbite or potential frostbite should go to a protected environment and get warm fluids. If there is no risk of re-freezing, the extremity can be exposed and warmed in the underarm of a companion or the groin. If the area is allowed to refreeze, there can be worse tissue damage. If the area cannot be reliably kept warm, the person should be brought to a medical facility without rewarming the area.

The first priority in people with frostbite should be to assess for hypothermia and other life-threatening complications of cold exposure. Before treating frostbite, the core temperature should be raised above 35 °C(95°F). Oral or intravenous (IV) fluids should be given.

"If the area is still partially or fully frozen, it should be rewarmed in the hospital with a warm bath with povidone iodine or chlorhexidine antiseptic. Active rewarming seeks to warm the injured tissue as quickly as possible without burning. The faster tissue is thawed, the less tissue damage occurs. According to Handford and colleagues, "The Wilderness Medical Society and State of Alaska Cold Injury Guidelines recommend a temperature of 37–39 °C (98.6°F-102.2°F), which decreases the pain experienced by the patient whilst only slightly slowing rewarming time." Warming takes 15 minutes to 1 hour. The faucet should be left running so the water can circulate. Rewarming can be very painful, so pain management is important."

they generally reccomend NSAIDS or opioids for pain management during rewarming. depending kn the severity there may have to be wound care as well.

[kitsiinabox]

Adding a small thing to this related to electrical devices above- keep your phones close to your body. In an inner pocket if you can. Cold can and will kill your phone faster than you can believe. That's true for a lot of devices with rechargable batteries. You'll want to keep them as warm as you are and use them as little as possible. Bring books, pens and paper, plain old analogue things to entertain yourself while you're trapped inside.

[albatrossisland]

[apolladay]

What is the largest WILD mammal (not pets and not livestock) you've seen near where you live/lived?

Small (mice/rats/guinea pigs/mole/bats/etc) Medium small (rabbit/racoon/opossum/etc) Medium (fox/hare/capybara/koala/etc) Medium large (cougar/wolf/seal/hyena/boar/etc) Large (zebra/grizzly bear/lion/kangaroo/etc) Large large (elephant seal/moose/rhino/hippo/camel/etc) Even larger (elephant/giraffe/etc??) Whales???

Hella curious because I live in an urban area and the largest wild (debatable) mammals I've seen are rats (so sad), and it blows my mind that there are whole ass truck size moose walking around people's streets

What is the largest WILD mammal (not pets and not livestock) you've seen near where you live/lived?

Small (mice/rats/guinea pigs/mole/bats/etc)

Medium small (rabbit/racoon/opossum/etc)

Medium (fox/hare/capybara/koala/etc)

Medium large (cougar/wolf/seal/hyena/boar/etc)

Large (zebra/grizzly bear/lion/kangaroo/etc)

Large large (elephant seal/moose/rhino/hippo/camel/etc)

Even larger (elephant/giraffe/etc??) Whales???

Voting ended onSep 20, 2025

[great-and-small]

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

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

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

[great-and-small]

For my fellow Sandhill craniacs interested in this phenomenon you’ll be delighted to know another cross-species adoption has been spotted in Madison WI this spring! Unknown how this happened but folks in my birder groups are saying the cranes took over an abandoned Canada goose nest with a single unhatched egg left behind. No way to know the backstory for sure but hopefully this chick is able to figure out life with his new eccentric parents

Hilariously, this baby is growing up to have the best posture I’ve ever seen on a Canada goose- look how tall he stands!

[sunnyonline]

@letsblogwithmama

[letsblogwithmama]

let's get adopted by mama