The musings of a lupine inclined kinkster

TW:like super occasional kink content...duh. The worst ye'll likely get is here in my bio. Multifandom cos I am a true disaster Bisexual UnicornPuppers and The Most Rampant of Unicorns. 🦄🏳️‍🌈❤️💜💙🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 Old enough to remember the sound of dialup broadband, married! 😎, GenderQueer Scottish Panromantic Bisexual Thurian Switch. Pronouns//Honourifics (Nix/Nim/Nihr) or (She/They) // Master/Sir/Mistress/Daddy/sub/slave/boi

[blacklupis]

"Holy Shit, true love WORKS?!"

(Harley Quinn, Lover's Quarrel 2021)

[Harley Quinn to Poison Ivy after using true loves kiss to break Dr Psycho's Mind control]

(Harley Quinn, animated series, Warner Bros & DC TV, S2x12 'Lovers' Quarrel)

***

In this house WE STAN a

Dangerous

Disaster Bi

Icon

and her

Well-put-together

Statuesque Bi

Queen

[ID: 4 gifs of Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy being in love over the years from Batman:The Animated Series and Harley Quinn the animated series.

Gif 1: full colour with a dark fade, cartoon, scene from the Batman:The Animated Series (90s), two figures stood in front of a brown wall, Ivy a red headed white woman wearing 50s style winged eyeliner with dark lipstick and a black sweatheart bust off the shoulder dress is playing fanning out a handful of stolen bank cards, Harley a paperwhite woman with makeup on is dressed in a red and black harlequin outfit wearing a black domino mask and black lipstick is holding her peering over her left shoulder at her right hand side. They are talking to each other and smirking at one another conspiratorially.

Gif 2: sepia tinted and muted colours, cartoon, scene from Batman:The Animated Series (90s), two figures standing together in front of a silhouetted heart, Harley Quinn a very pale white woman in a red and black skintight harlequin outfit with a black domino mask leans over, as if to kiss her, but then sprays perfume using the hand spritz bulb into Poison Ivy a white woman with red hair and a black corseted of the shoulder dress, she is wearing black above the elbow opera gloves. She demureky holds her hand to the side and turns her head back and forth through the cloud of perfume. When she finishes her gaze holds Ivy intently. There is an unspoken connection there. It sparks.

Gif 3: full colour, cartoon, scene from Harley Quinn the Animated series (2020/2021-) highly saturated, close-up shot of Harley and Ivy together. We see them both partially. Harley's blonde hair is in pigtails. We see Harley's pale white hand in a red fingerless driving glove is held to Ivy's temple. Ivy's eye's glow with the light of Dr. Psycho's Mind control. As the camera zooms in the mind control is broken by Harley's love for her and we see Ivy's eyes return to their normal colour. Ivy is a green skinned woman with green lips, green eyes with green irises and bright red hair. They are in the rubble of their ruined headquarters.

Gif 4:full colour, cartoon scene from Harley Quinn the animated series (2020/2022-), glowing and saturated. This moment immediately precedes Gif 3. Bright pink background glittering like stars I the night's sky. It is romantic and magnificent. Two figures spinning and kissing radiating light that sparkles around them. We can see that it is Harley and Ivy spinning in place as they embrace and kiss one another. They are deeply in love. This kiss is breaking the mind control that Dr. Psycho has over Ivy. Ivy's eyes glow as they spin. Harley's eyes are closed. She kisses her fiercely and holds her tight. Ivy's hands hold her at the nape of her neck. Harley has unnaturally pale skin, her blonde hair in pigtails and we see that one is dip dyed blue and the other pink. She has pale blue and pink eyeshadow on. She has dark red lipstick. She is wearing a black and red bi-colour vertically split inset diamond patter tank top and red and black short shorts. She has black and red fingerless driving gloves on. Her hands are framing Ivy's face. Their hair swirls around them. Ivy has dark red hair, white glowing eyes and green lips. Her skin is green. She has a dark green shiny jacket on. It would be a leather jacket except for the fact that Ivy abhors the hurting of animal and plantlife. It's probably vegan friendly ethically produced biodegradable plastic faux leather. We can see her green fitted trousers underneath the waist of her jacket. END ID]

[snakes-in-mirrors]

You are guilty of making me obssesed with snakes, happy? ( I sure am)

Snakes? What snakes?

It's time for left-hand drawings again (my main hand hurts today, I suspect because of the weather too >:c)

[snakes-in-mirrors]

Full sneks collection.

[snakes-in-mirrors]

Lots of new people here and some are wondering why a vampire has a snake. It's a touching story in three acts:

[snakes-in-mirrors]

I don't have any new holiday pictures (yet), but I have another warm snake from last year! 🐍❄️

[snakes-in-mirrors]

Happy International Cat Day 🐈

[snakes-in-mirrors]

The Symbol 🐍 [oc]

[snakes-in-mirrors]

This is more of an ask for the artist. I SWEAR I've seen you use a broken vase motif for Lucian before somewhere. Could you explain what it symbolises?

Hey there! Yes, indeed, I used this motif several times! This is partly a symbol of his being a medium - he has no "soul" in the conventional sense (that's why there is a name "Hollow Vessel" for one of the pieces). But it's also a symbol of how Lucian has perceived himself over the years - a pretty vase, a pretty face, an object without personality or core, broken and empty. (It will get better with time and when he will stop being lonely)

[gallusrostromegalus]

I was raised agnostic and tend to remain ambiguous on theological matters.

-but my house has a porch on the second story that affords me a terrific view of my neighborhood and the Colorado Front Range and I was partaking of some peace before the 4th Of July Finger-Loss Festivities begin, and I have had a

~*Spiritual Experience*~

I just watched my neighbor try to unload an actual wooden pallet that had to have been forklifted into the back of his insecurity pickup worth of fireworks.

Except that he does not have a forklift in his garage.

He does have so much sports memorabilia and cardboard boxes of unsold MLM Merchandise and patriotically themed camping gear and posters of women in bikinis and flags of suspect political organizations in his garage that there is only BARELY enough space for the fireworks and certainly none for his truck.

So he had to unload the individual boxes of recreational explosives from the back of his truck and stack them in the minimal space he had cleared by hand. This is a tedious and time-consuming process as this neighbor has purchased a wide variety of recreational and locally illegal explosives instead of many of just a few types, so the individual boxes are rather small.

He begins, and this is crucial to what happens next, by cutting apart the industrial-grade saran wrap his explosives dealer had so carefully wrapped his merchandise in, and discarded it unsecured on his lawn.

Where Outdoor Conditions sometimes happen.

His process for unloading the fireworks is to 1. Climb up through the gate into the bed of his pickup truck (a feat made unusually difficult due to the slope of his driveway, and this man's fascinating decision to wear the world's Siffest and least Flexible Denim Overalls. 2. Once in the pickup bed, he selects ONE (1) box from the pile He is apparently from a niche religious institution that doesn't believe in stacking things. 3. Carries it awkwardly around the palette that barely fits in the truck bed 4. His wife yells "Be careful!" when he nearly falls out of the pickup. 5. He Yells "SHADDUP!" back at her. 6. The Large German Shepherd barks from inside the house. 7. He yells "SHADDUP!" back at her too. 8. He sets the (1) box down on the gate 9. Slowly and awkwardly climbs out of the pickup bed 10. picks the box back up, and carries it into the garage.

Question: Aren't you going to help this poor man? Answer: Absolutely Not.

There's four military veterans, MANY dogs, and several people with dementia in this neighborhood, all of whom are terrified by this chicanery every year and many neighbors have repeatedly asked him to maybe do the fireworks somewhere else. (This is the Eighth Year Running he's held a major demolition event in his driveway, and for those of you who can do math, you may be able to guess the precipitating incident to this little ritual) Additionally, I live in Colorado, a state marginally less prone to spontaneous and catastrophic conflagrations than a rotting grain silo, but only marginally. Our recreational explosives laws are written accordingly.

I am in fact calling the Non Emergency line to report Fireworks violations, and reading off the brand labels to someone named Dorothy, who is gleefully totaling up a SPECTACULAR fine for my oblivious neighbor.

However, while I'm on the phone with Dorothy, I notice the wind begin to pick up. and by "Notice" I mean "The Industrial Saran Wrap he left on his Lawn earlier is suddenly swept up about 100 feet into the air by an updraft intense enough to make my ears pop" And by "Pick Up" I mean "I look up to see the sky has turned a fun and exciting shade of glass green, and the bottoms of the clouds are bumpy and rounded, and the overall effect is not unlike looking up through the bottom of the cup at God's Matcha Boba Tea."

For those of you who do not live in places with Inclement Weather, these conditions mean "You have about 30 seconds before a Major Meteorological Event Occurs."

I move under the eaves. "Hang on Dorothy." I say, nose filling with Petrichor. "The show is about to be cancelled." "Oh, that doesn't matter!" Dorothy cheerfully informs me. "It's illegal for him just to possess those, no matter if he actually gets to set them off or not." "Terrific, because he's gotten maybe five boxes out of a hundred inside."

Sometimes, the weather gods are Merciful and give you a verbal warning, typically in the kind of thunderclap that makes your ears ring.

The Gods were not merciful today.

It's not often that I am in the time, place, correct angle or in a properly observational frame of mind to see this, But I got to see it today. Huh. I thought. I've never seen a cloud just DIVE for the ground before. Oh. I realized as it got closer. That's RAIN.

Sometimes, a thunderstorm will form in such a way that the rain that would normally be distributed over an area of say, five to tent square miles, is instead concentrated into an area of say, my neighborhood exactly.

So today, I was granted the rare privilege of being able to actually see the literal wall of water descend from On High and DIRECTLY onto my porch, my street, and my neighbor's truck, and his pile of unwrapped fireworks.

The sheer impact force of the downpour immediately scatters the teetering pile of fireworks boxes in the back of the truck, like the wrath of God striking down the tower of Babel. Boxes tumble, then are washed out of the bed of the truck by the deluge. Smaller Boxes are carried down the road in a little line by the stream forming in the gutter, like little impotent explosive ducklings.

My neighbor was definitely yelling something, but I could not hear what over the DEAFENING noise several million gallons of water makes upon high-speed contact with the earth's surface, but there was a lot of arm-waving and faces turning red as he went looking for the saran wrap that had probably blown to Nebraska by now, while his wife started disassembling the complex three-dimensional puzzle of interlocking material goods in search of a tarp. They do not have a tarp. They have one of those wretched Thin Blue Line flags though, and my neighbor jogs out in a futile effort to cover what's left in the truck.

Which is when the hail begins.

"HELLO?" Yelled Dorothy. "HI!" I shouted. "WE'RE HAVING SOME WEATHER!" "OH GOOD!" she shouts back. "WE NEED THE MOISTURE!"

I watch for a minute longer, but the loss was immediate and catastrophic- the hail is the size of marbles and dense and cares not for your pitiful cardboard and cellophane, ripping the boxes asunder and punching holes in the few things covered in plastic. The colors on the Thin Blue Line Flag are seeping all over the remains of that it was supposed to protect in a particularly apt visual metaphor. Not even the few boxes that made it into the garage are spared, as the German Shepherd escapes from indoors, and in an attempt to assist her humans, jumps directly into the small stack of not-yet-ruined boxes, scattering them into the driveway and deluge. She even picks one up so her humans will chase her around the yard, before dropping it in the gutter to be swept away.

So. I was raised Agnostic -but even I can recognize when God slaps someone upside the head and shouts "NO!" at them.

---

(If you laughed, please consider supporting my Ko-fi or preordering my book of Strange Stories on Patreon)

[gallusrostromegalus]

So it's national Recreational Explosives, Hand Loss and Wildfire day, and unlike 2023, there is nary a drop of rain in sight.

Despite being slapped upside the head by God, my put technically inclined neighbor has acquired TWO pallets of fireworks this year.

The state is of no help: my city police department has made it pretty clear they don't intend to respond to any fireworks calls this weekend. I've sent the pictures I took to the county tipline and received and automated email reply saying that it will take several weeks to process my case. Perhaps he will get jail time later, but this does not actually you know. Stop him from setting the neighborhood ablaze. Going up to his door the week prior and very politely asking him to move- not cancel, just relocate - his celebrations was met with calling me a "nosy bitch" and "I'll set one off in your ass!".

Sometimes God needs us to make our own miracles.

My miracle comes with several layers, and plenty of opportunities to back down without losing face. We'll see how many are needed.

The first wave has already been deployed: a psyop directed at the Visiting Mother In Law of the miscreant.

I got up at 8:30 AM this morning to make sure I'd be in the front yard of my house, casually doing yardwork with Herschel. His participation was essential.

For those of you who are new here, Herschel is the world's most charming Cardigan Welsh Crime Tube, who thinks everyone in the world is his best friend and that people come to the house to see him specifically. So at 9:04 AM when the visiting mother-in-law appeared around the corner on her daily power-walk around the block, Herschel employed his natural Corgi instinct to make friends with everyone and cheerfully tossed himself on the sidewalk in front of her, belly up for expected tummy rubs.

"OH AREN'T YOU DARLING!!" My target coos, kneeling down to pat him while he makes him like snuffling noises of glee. She is at least 70. I think her bright pink leg warmers and terrycloth headband might be original from her jazzercise days.

"I'm so sorry! Herschel you're going to trip people doing that!" I apologize, going up to greet the woman. "I'm [REDACTED], I don't think we've met..?"

"No, I'm just visiting my daughter and her family- my name is Barbara. And who is this?" She asks Herschel, whose whole back end is waggling with glee.

"This is my service dog Herschel." I explain while he rolls around on the pavement. "I just wanted him to get some time outside before the pyrotechnics start."

"Oh. Yes." Barbra grumbles and I know I've got her. "My son-in-law is planning something extravagant." She says with such disdain it practically comes out of her nose. This is a woman who loves her daughter and dearly wishes she married someone, anyone else.

"Yeah, he got rained out and sick the last two years, so I think he's compensating." I agree.

"Oh he's definitely overcompensating!" Barbra spits, then shakes her whole body like a dog. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't complain. You said he's a service dog?"

I go for it.

"Yeah! I have... Neurological problems." I say and that is technically true. "I've um. Lost a lot of things, like a sense of time, or appetite, and his job is to remind me to eat or take my meds or alerts that I'm having an episode. My personal dog-tor!" I say, patting his adorable little head, and he leans on me, equally adoring.

"Oh, is that why-?" Barbra starts to ask, gesturing at the top of her head, but stops herself.

I hadn't planned this, but yesterday I'd shaved my head to deal with the heat and now only have a quarter inch of hair, which doesn't really hide the scars from when I got run over by a minivan. They're bright red with the heat and exertion of yard work.

I decide I'm okay with lying to a stranger to prevent my house from being set ablaze.

I sort of... Crumple to the ground and drop the rake I was holding, and Herschel immediately climbs into my lap to comfort me as I start to cry.

"Oh my God." Says Barbra.

"I'm sorry!" I gasp, tears streaming down my face. I've been stressed and this is honestly very cathartic. "I'm sorry to dump on you, I'm just so scared-!"

"Oh my God. It's bad." Barbra realizes.

"D- do you know what-" a pause as Herschel tries to manually clear my nostrils like a good service dog. "-oh, Herschel... It's - do you know what an astrocytoma* is?"

*An astrocytoma is a type of brain tumor.

Barbra turns white and sits down next to me. "I'm so sorry... I- one of my friends from church had one, it was agony but she's alright now!" She tries to reassure me.

"It hurts! Everything hurts all the time!" I sob. "And- and I'm scared, so he's scared and I feel bad for hi which just makes it worse and then there's the-" I gesture at the sky. "I have surgery in a month to remove as much of it as they can and do biopsies to see if I need radiation too but..."

"-but all that noise must be Hell on you and your doggy." Barbra nods.

"It'd be fine if he went down to the lake of something but, that house's driveway is like, a hundred feet from my bedroom, I can't sleep and it TERRIFIES Herschel..." I whimper pathetically.

"Well. I may be able to do something about that." Barbra decides.

"Oh no, I don't want to intrude!" I mock-protest.

"No, we're the ones intruding dear. I'll have words with him." She growls. I get the impression she's been waiting for an excuse To Have Words With Him.

"Th-thank you. Um. It's getting hot and I'm a mess, we should probably go inside..." I mutter and Barbra very kindly helps me and Herschel to the front door and tells me she'll be by later with watermelon as we wave goodbye.

From the porch, I watch her furiously power-walk back to her daughter's house, wrench open the front door, and issue a battle cry of "HEN-RY!!!" before it slams behind her.

Now I realize that this may not have been the most honest or ethical thing to do, but I figured it's more polite and ethical than the next step, which is chemical warfare, courtesy of Bath & Body Works :)

[gallusrostromegalus]

Well, they Psyop seems to have worked! That cul-de-sac, and indeed my entire block is perfectly quiet tonight!

Unfortunately I cannot say the same of the surrounding neighborhood, so it has been necessary to deploy The Stench.

The Stench is a mixture of Odoriferous chemicals meant to be discreetly poured over a surface (preferably something hot, like a sidewalk or fence in direct sunlight) to render an area temporarily uninhabitable, Similar to spraying coyote pee on your garden to discourage the rabbits. I can't give you a full recipe because I forgot to take notes, but elements include:

Spoiled beef broth, which is both rancid and unexpectedly sour (boiled to kill bacteria)

Expired milk, the most retch-inducing ingredient for me.

Several bottles of Liquid Ass

Ghost Pepper Hot Sauce

Concentrated Dog Urine

and FOUR bottles of Bath & Body Work's Cucumber Melon, which smells light and fruity when used as a light body spray, but in concentration smells like an entire fruit cart left to rot, possibly along with the carcass of the fruitseller.

The resulting solution smells like raw sewage, a fraternity dorm fridge when the power's been out for a week, and a roadkilled skunk. It's impressively vile. Herschel wanted to roll in it so bad.

I've spent the last few hours strolling the surrounding neighborhoods until I found the source of the mortars and flying explosives that are the real hazards, ingratiating myself into the parties, and discreetly dousing the lawns and fences nearby until someone goes "OH GOD!" and gags, and the party breaks up shortly thereafter. I returned home because I ran out of The Stench, despite hiding five 2L soda bottles of it in a backpack.

I will call it a success though, because while I can hear fireworks, they're all at least a mile away from me. In total:

Fire Hazard Parties derailed: 13

Screaming: 10

Crying: 13

Vomiting: 4

Fight blaming each other for causing The Stench: 5

Called the city to complain about The Stench, on the assumption it was a sewage issue, and then waited right next to their pile of illegal fireworks, for the fire department to show up: 2.

Guy who claimed to be enjoying the smell: 1

Party was partially derailed by The Stench, and partly by the fact they actually did start a fire: 1 (every human was alright, the pyro's roof, not as much)

Stray dogs caught and returned home: 2

So next year: MORE STENCH.

Until then, I have a corgi zooted on trazadone on my feet, and we bid you goodnight.

(If you would like to support a disabled storyteller and/or fund more stench research, you can donate to my Ko-fi or pre-order my Family Lore book on Patreon)

[gallusrostromegalus]

Well. It's the Fourth Of July. Again.

For those of you who aren't familiar, I live in an exceptionally flammable part of the United States, and despite the fact that every goddamn year multiple parts of my state catch fire, destroy homes and kill people, the local assholes insist on getting drunk and setting fire to a bunch of illegal explosives anyway. In 2023, God granted me a Miracle that prevented my house from burning down.

Last year, I had to resort to Psychological and Chemical Warfare to keep the patriotic arsonists at bay.

This year is apparently An Important Birthday for the clusterfuck we have the nerve to call a nation, so despite the fact there is so much smoke in the air that the sun has literally been blood red for the last week, the pyrotechnic fetishists are out in force.

Last year, I hit upon the concept that if my neighbors were going to act like problem animals, it would make sense to use the management techniques on them that you might use on say, a Bear that was doing serious property damage. Thusly, I created The Stench, a nontoxic but FOUL smelling concoction that I could discretely spray around the flammable gatherings and render the area extremely uncomfortable to occupy for the rest of the night, forcing them to give up or move on.

If this seems harsh: There is no story from 2024 because a grass fire was started by fireworks less than 12 miles from me and the high winds put me in the evacuation zone in under an hour. Over fifty people lost their homes. Errant fireworks burning my house down is a very real possibility, and I pay the price in anxiety and insurance premiums.

The Stench is noxious but harmless, and also very effective at building a buffer zone around my home. But sneaking up to parties on foot in this heat is both exhausting and nerve-wracking. There have to be more effective ways to do this

-And there is! It involves Weeds and Business Cards :)

All of this spring, I've been battling Bindweed and my City Code Enforcement Officers.

The city code people have been professional, but the truth is that one of my neighbors is calling them on use because one of my housemates is transgender. It's extremely grating to get these notices, having to explain repeatedly that I *AM* working on the weed situation, I just have a heart condition and No Money. It's also deeply paranoia-inducing to know that the city is regularly coming by and photographing my house.

The Solution to the Bindweed is 1 gallon of high-concentration vinegar, half a cup of Borax, a quarter cup of salt, and a couple tablespoons of dish soap. Get one of those weed sprayers from a hardware store and mix it up in there. Spray it on your thistles, bindweed, kudzu, garlic mustard or whatever your local herbaceous invasive is on a day with bright sunlight, and in a few hours the entire part of the plant above the soil is Deceased. It's non-toxic to insects, pets and wildlife (just wait a few months before trying to plant anything in the area for the traces to wash out). The only real downside to this stuff is that it smells HEINOUS.

Sure, The Stench is nauseating, but WeedFucker 5000 is genuinely painful to inhale. Again, it wont hurt people- even my asthmatic housemates can use the stuff- but boy howdy it sure smells toxic. I've got the ingredients for about 40 gallons of WeedFucker 5000 prepared and ready to go.

I've also got a disposable hazmat suit, rubber boots and gloves, respirator, goggles and a shitty little golf cart from the free section of craigslist to haul my shit around in. I also have Business Cards!

See, the very nice officers from the City Code department left some Very Nice business cards so that I may contact them about "the fucking bindweed is gone, get off my back". So I scanned the business card into my computer, fired up Clip Studio, and made my own business cards. I've turned my City's Abstract Triangle Logo into an Eye of Providence and the slogan of "E Pluribus Unum" to "E Plurbis Anus", Changed my city's name to a dumb pun, and stated the card originates from "The Department Of Public Nuisances".

Crucially, where the name and contact information of the real city employee has been replaced with the name and business email of the neighbor who has been bragging on facebook about calling the city code department on my home because he hates my housemate :)

It looks, at a glance, very much like the business cards of city employees. If you look at it for like 5 seconds though, there's no way it could be mistaken for the real thing.

I've printed out 500 of these bad boys and will have them on hand as I, a put-upon employee, am forced to work overtime on a national holiday doing weed mitigation, because my boss can't manage deadlines for shit. You're mad about it? I've been out here since 5 AM! But if we don't finish by the deadline we lose the contract and I could get fired. You know what the economy is. Here, this is my Boss's Business card- how about you send him an email about how this has ruined your barbecue?

It's golden hour now, so I'm Suiting Up and preparing to embark on some civil service in the form of Noxious Weed Eradication, and by coincidence, Fire Mitigation.

I'll report back later Tonight🫡

(If you'd like to support your local disabled storyteller in their Acts Of Public Service, please consider donating to my Ko-Fi or supporting me on Patreon)

[gallusrostromegalus]

Well. It's not quite an hour into July 5th. I am very tired, may have destroyed my sense of smell, and am not sure if I'm proud of or VERY disappointed in my fellow citizens.

On one hand: FAR fewer fireworks parties this year!

- Only nine to last year's thirteen - three of them had the good sense to be firing their recreational explosives out over the local reservoir - That's far from foolproof - and really bad for the fish - also y'all are RIGHT NEXT to where the Bald Eagles are nesting - but congratulations on at least attempting some risk mitigation!

On the other hand.

Absolutely NOBODY questioned why the hell I was out spraying weeds.

- In a Hazmat Suit (technically it's a coverall for painting rooms, which is much more breathable, but looks the part) - In a Residential Area - After Dark - On a Federal Holiday

Like I'm glad I didn't get into a fight or something, but like. I was Ready. I had that conversation locked and loaded. I MADE BUSINESS CARDS.

...But instead of Very Reasonably asking What The Fuck I Was Doing, the crowds at these parties saw me (5'0" flat, potato-shaped, sweating profusely) trundling up on the slowest and least-intimidating motor vehicle in the county*, hanging a bit out the side to spray thistles and bindweed on the streets and sidewalks**, and instead of raising a rival stink, I was instead greeted by some derisive muttering and a couple of "OH COME ON!"s, but the groups dispersed and retreated indoors or at least away from the general direction of my home. *Like genuinely, I think Barbie's Dream Car has more horsepower than this golf cart. This thing doesn't have horsepower. It doesn't even have ponypower. It's running on duckpower. It waddles, something I didn't know a wheeled vehicle could do.

**Actually completely legal and a welcome community service in my city. Thank you Neighbor Barbara for telling me the exact part of city code that details what civilians are allowed to do about weeds on public roads, which is apparently "LOTS". Theoretically I could bill the city for my time tonight.

Do people not know how to Make A Scene anymore?

I was absolutely sure I was going to get filmed and shit thrown at me, or someone would call the cops. My beloved was terrified I was going to get shot. I at least had ONE woman shout "YOU'RE RUINING EVERYTHING!" at me, which isn't quite as good as being told I'm ruining Christmas, but she said it with a genuinely heartwarming anguish while gesturing to a homemade "HAPPY BIRTHDAY AMERICA!!" banner, with an attempt at rendering The Evil Orange that as so enthusiastically yet talentlessly executed I almost stopped to get a picture of it. He looked like he'd been put in a wafflemaker.

I promised my beloved that I would turn around and come home at midnight, and I did, having eliminated every fireworks party and Scottish thistle in a five-block radius despite the lackadaisical maximum speed of my Steel Steed.

The complete lack of protest is honestly shocking to me. My flabbers are completely gasted. I waddled home on the golf cart in a sort of stunned silence that this HAS worked so well. The whole world is almost eerily quiet, and reeking of vinegar.

...Which is maybe why I didn't notice the cop pulling up beside me at a red light until he rolled down his window and leaned out at me.

"WHAT'RE YOU DOIN'?" He asked, in a voice that could be used as a foghorn in emergencies.

I probably would have jumped were I not currently melting into a semblance of the Chernobyl Elephant's Foot in the heat, which was the first thing that saved me. The second was the voice of my Grandfather, coming to my aid through decades of generational memory, to tell me his words of wisdom, usually spoken right before doing something wildly inadvisable:

The Age Of Miracles Is Not Yet Over.

"Weed Mitigation!" I called back. "CHRIST ON A BIKE, THEY GOT YOU GUYS WORKING THE HOLIDAY TOO?" He said, in the same fontissimo as before. Apparently Officer Foghorn just talks like this.

"Yep." I nodded.

"SHIT." He blared in solidarity. "WHEN DO YOU GET OFF?"

"Just finished."

"MOTHERFUCKER. THEY GOT ME OUT HERE UNTIL GODDAMN 5 AM." Officer Foghorn whined in THX.

"Shit." I commiserated.

The light turned green.

"ALRIGHT YOU GET HOME SAFE! GOD BLESS!" He waved, and drove off at something significantly above the speed limit, and I trundled on home.

I must have still looked shocked when I came in, because My Beloved immediately got up to hug me and ask if I was alright.

"The Age Of Miracles Is Not Yet Over." I nodded slowly as the animals all battered me about the legs for attention. "...For real though, absolutely nothing happened."

"What?" he squints, wobbling slightly as Charlie tries to shove him aside for better access to me. "That's... Is it weird to say I'm almost disappointed?"

"I mean, I confirmed that I inherited my Grandfather's supernatural ability to get out of trouble for no good reason, but we knew that from the code enforcement people." I shrugged. Selene finally noticed the smell of vinegar and retched in disapproval.

"How about a shower and some Ice cream?" My Beloved suggests.

So now it is July the 5th. - My house is not ablaze - There are four medium-sized carnivores sleeping on me - I am freshly bathed - and I have a pint of Americone Dream all to myself

Here's to you, your health and your happiness, and a reminder to go make good trouble. Goodnight all.

---

(If you enjoy reading about my adventures (and the occasional curious non-adventure) I'd appreciate it if you could tip me on Ko-Fi. Apparently my Patreon link is fucked but it's basically 1 in the morning and I can't be arsed.)

[eebie]

i miss everyone

[eebie]

[c-53]

Wild caught clownfish will be like ‘hm you see, the anemone you got me is a slightly different color and tentacle width than the one I had back home, so I will not begin hosting it. I’ll be a sort of wandering ronin for the rest of my days.’ And then a captive bred clownfish will be like ‘ok so I have this curved rock I found and I just sit above it and it take care of me 👍’

[c-53]

Some of my favorite clownfish hosts

[cipheramnesia]

#mybrick

[what-even-is-thiss]

As an adult I’ve unlocked some of my dad’s more sketchy personal stories and after hearing them I’m like okay I know that you’re not gay at all but considering that you showed up to a drug deal wearing a pink cardigan and used to dress up fancy to play croquet and smoke weed, I can see how some people used to assume that you were gay.

[fandom-man]

[charlesoberonn]

Two conclusions to be drawn from this picture:

1 - the geese in the background show that the fake coyote doesn't deter geese

2 - the fact they needed to put up a sign implies that the fake coyote did deter humans

[homunculus-argument]

Hey people who have several pets, with obvious differences in intelligence levels: How did you figure out that one of them is smarter than the other? What do they do?

[mikkeneko]

There are a lot of things that lead me to think my elder cat is unusually intelligent compared to other felis domesticus I have known (understands pointing, can open every door and cabinet in the house except the ones with round knobs or that I added child locks to, understands enough English to know from a phone conversation that a stranger is coming to the house) but in terms of specifically comparing one to the other, there was The Case Of The Mousey Puzzle Box.

When we got our younger cat Skadi, her favorite toy was (still is, but she's calmed down with age) the rattley mouse. She would bring the mouse to be thrown for fetch so many times that not even two human adults in the house could keep up with her. So my partner started making puzzle boxes to put the rattley mouse in that would occupy her for longer.

So, we have a setup: mouse is in the puzzle box, puzzle box is on the floor, younger cat is trying to resolve the puzzle box, elder cat is sitting on the cat tree observing all this. Skadi spends about fifteen minutes trying and failing to get the mouse out of the box. She sticks her paw into the holes. She sticks her nose into the holes. She pushes the box to and fro on the carpet. She meows beseechingly for a human to come solve the problem. Sticks her paws into the holes again.

Finally, she gives up on the puzzle box and wanders over to see if there's any food to be had. As soon as she walks away the elder cat gets up from the cat tree, big stretch, jumps down, walks over to the puzzle box, hooks a paw under the edge and flips the whole thing over, spilling the mouse onto the floor.

Gives the younger cat a look of utter disgust as if to say "That's all you had to do!" and then walks away, utterly uninterested in actually playing with the toy.

[bisexualbaker]

Older cat just subjected to fifteen minutes worth of those horrible mobile game ads where the player is failing really badly to make you want to play.

[mevil]