lauvtrash

this is what, my third attempt at a personal? k

[bekkathyst]

BEKKATHYST WINTER 2018 GIVEAWAY

~This giveaway is in no way affiliated with Tumblr.~

Please read thoroughly before entering!

Hello lovely Tumblr folk! It’s that time again- I have a giveaway for you all. Last year ended great, so I thought we should start this year great! So I’m giving you the chance to win this large collection of items.

All these items came from my shop.

What you get:

$50 credit that can be applied to anything in my shop.

amethyst & calcite cluster 

labradorite palm stone

tumbled quartz 

fluorite bunny

rainbow moonstone necklace (handmade by me!) 

other tumbled stones

selenite wand

quartz wand 

obsidian sphere 

lapis lazuli sphere

labradorite heart 

selenite tower 

tiger’s eye cow carving 

giant druzy heart

amethyst hedgehog 

rainbow moonstone nuggets

chunks of labradorite 

This has a retail value of $215 in addition to the $50 shop credit!

Rules:

You must be 16 or older. (If under 18 you MUST have parent’s permission)

You don’t have to live in the US to join!

You must be following me, so you can get updates if anything about the giveaway changes.

Please check out my shop and if you’re interested, you can sign up for my email newsletter here. (Totally not necessary or required, it’s just an option!)

DO NOT tag this post as giveaway. That will risk the notes getting messed up, and this will be ruined for everyone.

Reblog this post to enter. Likes count, too. No giveaway or spam blogs. If you reblog on a side blog, let me know in the tags what the name of your blog is that you’re following me with.

Please don’t spam people with reblogs- limit 2 reblogs per day. Last time I had angry people messaging me because people were spamming it a bunch :s 

Each entry will be assigned a number and the winner will be chosen by a random number generator.

The giveaway ends Wednesday, February 28th at 6 pm Pacific time.

The winner will be messaged and must respond with their full name and address within 24 hours, or a new winner will be chosen.

Please respect me and my rules, and have fun!

[bekkathyst]

Thats pretty cool that your husband was able to quit his job to work at your shop! I had no idea there was so much money to be made in crystal sales. Just to be clear, you make enough profit to not have to work?

Short answer: this shop is the full time job of me, my husband, and my mom. 

Long answer: I hope you don’t mind, but I thought this question is a great opportunity to tell a little more of my(our) story, especially for those who haven’t been following for long. This is probably going to be long and possibly emotional :p 

Back in 2013, when I first started my shop my husband and I were living in poverty in a horrible central LA studio apartment in a bad, dangerous neighborhood. I started my shop as a desperate attempt to get some type of income to hopefully help us. I started with wire wrapping simple stones. I sold very simple, beginner level jewelry. 

I didn’t make my first sale for months. The first year of my shop was not profitable whatsoever. I felt sad and defeated, but I was way too stubborn to give up. The next year was a little better. My following on tumblr grew (so my customer base grew) and sales *almost* became regular. However, my shop still was hardly profitable. But it was better than before. 

2015 was the year things drastically picked up. I was working nonstop on my little shop and it grew to selling crystals as well as my wire wraps. Toward the middle of the year, I finally got the idea that maybe, just maybe, it could grow enough to support both me and my husband. So, we decided to make the jump. 

I found a little house for rent on a horse ranch, over 100 miles away from LA in the little town of Anza, up in the mountains. We applied and it seemed like the owner really liked us. She gave us the house! So my husband finally quit his job and started helping me pack orders. In a couple months we moved. I will never forget the feeling of moving into that little house and seeing the mountain sunset the first day we lived there. It was so satisfying knowing that our hard work made it possible! And it gave me the biggest breath of relief to know my life in LA was over. 

Things steadily grew, but then in 2016 some things happened that I still don’t feel comfortable talking about publicly. My mom and three of my sisters were threatened with homelessness, so we decided to move to a bigger place and have them live with us. (I have a total of 8 siblings and several of them are still teenagers and were living with my mom at the time) It was absolutely terrifying. I didn’t think at all we could support that many people. But we tried. The first couple of months were so hard, and it was really scary to know that many people were depending on us. 

But eventually things got so much better! In fact, things started getting so busy that my mom started packing orders too, and now the three of us (me, my husband, and my mom) run the show here behind the scenes. Last September we even moved to a bigger house because we needed more space for all our inventory! And now we’re even possibly opening up a physical store. It’s such an incredible blessing to know that this business has the ability to support my family. If it weren’t for it, this story would have had a much darker ending, I’m sure. 

But, yes, I spent many years building up my customer base, expanding my products, and improving my craft, and because of that, I have the beautiful blessing of being able to support my family doing what I love. At times it can be overwhelming, and it certainly is a lot of work, but I wouldn’t trade it for doing anything else. 

Sorry that was so long :p  

[this-tragic-affair]

Charities/organisations to avoid:

PETA: They’d rather spend their money on publicity campaigns than on the animals in their care. PETA killed 73.8% of the animals in their care in 2015 (x)

FCKH8: Is a for-profit company that exploits oppressed groups for money. They’re also wildly uninformed, and spread misogyny, cissexism and bi/panphobia, as well as stealing their posts/designs (x)

Autism Speaks: They spend most of their money on researching a way to eliminate autism, heighten the stigma against autism and don’t have a single autistic person on their board (x)

Please support other, better charities, and feel free to add any others you can think of to this.

[tequila-tekaylah]

Susan G. Komen for the Cure: CEO makes insane amounts of money, they deny a lot of requests for wigs/help with treatment/etc., and have attempted to sue other charities that use the color pink as part of their anti-breast cancer campaign. ( x x x )

[reproductivejusticeandliberty]

The Salvation Army: They promote the hatred of LGBT+ people, work with fundamentalist Christian groups to support conservative politics and rip off and exploit workers. ( x x x )

[shitpost-senpai]

Wounded Warrior: They take money that should be spent on veterans and blow it on huge opulent parties for the company bigwigs. 26 million in 2014 alone wasted! ( x x x )

[thefingerfuckingfemalefury]

^ Important reminder to NOT waste any money donating to these groups

[ayellowbirds]

Reblogging because of the added info about Wounded Warrior.

[arch4ngel]

A good way to know if a nonprofit you’re donating to is allocating their money in the right way is to check out their Charity Navigator rating: http://www.charitynavigator.org

[darkbookworm13-deactivated20240]

Signal boosting, the bell ringers are out in force, and this info is too important.

[rhubarbes]

[hentired]

If you need something to spice up your D&D campaign, tell your DM to use the Spongebob OST

[hentired]

In the tavern?

An awkward conversation with an NPC?

Boss battle????

[theveryworstthing]

the fight is harder each year.

[theveryworstthing]

gotta keep going because nothing ever stops.

[en1gmat1c]

Sketchy doodle commission for @lauvtrekin at FA c:

>>>COMMISSION INFORMATION HERE!!!<<<

[stimman3000]

https://instagram.com/p/BbX3XFZFTdn/

[weednun]

@iguanamouth

[lauvtrash-blog]

Stressed but cute (just like me)

[followthebluebell]

John Scarborough of GeckoBoa Reptiles just posted the final pathology reports from the lemon frost geckos.  Discussion thread here.

tl;dr:

Lemon Frost Female (LF1) - Pictures 1-3 - Tumors were found in the lungs, limbs, skin, pancreas (granuloma, a different sort of tumor), and eyes in the lemon frost samples.  Most relevant passage: “While this female was in good body condition at time of euthanasia, with time growth of visceral metastes would affect normal physiology of the affected organs, resulting in decline and death”.

Lemon Frost Male (LFM1) - Pictures 4-5 - Tumors found in liver, lungs, kidneys (particularly important), skin, cloaca, trachea, muscles, and adipose tissue.   The kidney, liver, and lung clusters are particularly relevant in the second sample since they indicate metastatic cancer.  His condition was much more serious than the female (LF1).  He was 7 months old and had metastatic cancer cells in his fat, indicating consistent and fast spread. 

Scarborough also reports than 6 out of 8 of his lemon frost geckos are showing tumors now.

These findings confirm that the morph should not be supported or reproduced.

[sunfish-exotics]

Super important.

[bekkathyst]

The beauty of girasol quartz! I often get asked what the difference is between girasol quartz and clear quartz. Girasol quartz has a much higher water content, which is what causes the ethereal, ~glowy~ look it has! It’s one of my favorites.

I still have a few available in the shop by themselves, and some will be in the crystal sets I’m listing today ☺

www.bekkathyst.com

[cats-tats-recovery]

Let’s all take a moment of silence for anyone who has to work retail the next couple of months.. And please remember that as busy as the holiday seasons are, and you might be in a hurry, your cashier/other employees are working really hard to make you happy and also have feelings like you. 🙏🙏

[zoobus]

An additional moment for those in packing, sorting, and shipping jobs, those who spend eight mind numbing, back breaking hours a day getting your holiday stuff to your house. The labor that goes into working at Amazon, UPS, FedEx, etc is miserable so please appreciate the work they do

[prog3sei]

YDさんのツイート: “フレームアームズ・ガール ミクと轟雷 https://t.co/vi9dLsuVp3”

[vansnakenstein]

“True Classic Corn” 2.0 10 x 8; Prismacolor markers and pencils $40 #cornsnake #cornsnakes #drawntoscales

[thecuckoohaslanded]

I can’t stop thinking about crocodiles for some reason so here’s some cool pictures I found of probably the second largest one in captivity, his name is Utan:

isn’t he beautiful

listen to the SOUND when he bites

and that’s not even a real power bite, that’s mostly just heavy bone falling on heavy bone from his jaws and the air rushing out from between them

[specsthespectraldragon]

2000 pounds of Good Boy

[thecuckoohaslanded]

you get me

[thecuckoohaslanded]

I honestly expected like 5 notes, what HAPPENED here

[thecuckoohaslanded]

More tags on this ridiculous post:

[cn123017-deactivated20181204]

Wait, thats the 2nd biggest crocodile? Then what does the biggest one look like?

[thecuckoohaslanded]

That would be Cassius, a very old Saltwater crocodile who is estimated to be around 114 years old and lives at Marineland Melanesia in Green Island, Australia.  His official measurement is 5.48 meters, which makes him the largest in captivity currently.  Because Utan is only slightly smaller and much younger, (only in his 50s), he will likely break Cassius’ record eventually.  But for now, Cassius holds the title:

He is NOT, however, either the largest crocodile ever captured in Australia OR the largest ever in captivity.

A slightly larger crocodile has been reported (though not yet comfirmed) to have been captured at 5.58 meters.

And while the famous Brutus of the Adelaide River was estimated to be just slightly larger than Cassius at 5.5m, he was driven out of his territory by a younger and even larger crocodile, who as a result has been given the name, The Dominator.  He is estimated to be just over 6m.

This is Brutus, with an appropriate caption:

It is believed that he lost that arm in a fight with a Bull Shark.  

The Bull Shark lost.

THIS is the crocodile who kicked him out.  The Dominator:

And that’s STILL not the biggest.  

The largest living crocodile ever reliably measured was Lolong, who for the 1.5 years between his capture and his death was the largest crocodile ever held in captivity, at a whopping 6.17 meters (20 feet 3 inches) and 1075 kg (2,370 lbs).  He had been feeding on both humans and very large livestock in the Bunawan creek in Agusan del Sur in the Philippines.  It took 100 people all night to drag him to shore during his capture.

And here’s why:

Also, to prevent credit from getting buried on a separate reblog, I have been informed that the above image of the crocodile with the cartoon eyes and halo was made by @rashkah!  (And it is wonderful and I would like to thank him for its existence, because it perfectly captures my feelings about terrifying giant primordial reptiles.)

[sometimesihavequestions-deactiv]

@theonewhocheeps

[theonewhocheeps]

Holy fuck

[simon-newman]

As far as Brutus is concerned I was led to believe that he lost that arm when relatively young.

Since then Brutus developed a habit of hunting and eating Bull Sharks.

Here’s him with a prey.

And if you thought that you’ll be safe if you just stay out of Australia then think again!

Meet Gustave the Nile Croc.

This crocodile became almost legendary for both it’s size and the habit of hunting both livestock AND humans.

So how big is Gustave?

No one is sure. Since he was NEVER captured.

His estimated size is of at least 5,5m  but some give him over 6m.

The terrifying parts are:

1) He is still growing having only about 60 years.

2) Adult crocodiles often perform a gesture of submission to him - something usually done by young crocodiles toward adults - Gustave is just THAT BIG.

3) His sheer size makes it difficult for him to catch agile prey Nile crocs tend to feed on - hence why he developed a habit of hunting either larger prey like Hippopotamus or creatures which are not good at spotting danger in the first place like livestock and humans.

And this is NOT ALL.

Gustave actually has a noticeable scars on his body - he was shot at east 3 times and stabbed with a spear or something similar at one occasion.

He lived to tell the tale - my question is:

What happened to that one dude who attacked Gustave with a spear?

[thecuckoohaslanded]

*Crocodile Dundee voice*  Mate, that’s not Gustave:

THIS is Gustave:

And he is the PERFECT CROCODILE.  He is the perfect example of what I mean when I talk about (as I do) how the morphology of extremely large crocodiles adapts to the changing physics of their bite.

This is a typical adult Nile Crocodile:

And THIS is a god among his kind:

This is it, folks.  The Final Form.  THIS is what peak performance looks like.

Crocodiles and physics have an interesting relationship.  Crocodiles have, by a CONSIDERABLE MARGIN, the strongest bite of any animal on Earth.  EVER.  Scaled up estimates (based on Nile and Saltwater crocodiles) give the extinct Deinosuchus an estimated bite force MORE THAN DOUBLE the recently updated Tyrannosaurus bite estimates.  Living crocodiles have bite forces measured in the range of 5000 pounds per square inch, for an individual around 15-16 feet.  It is estimated that modern crocodiles in the range of 18-20 feet would have bit forces around 7-8000 psi or more.

That’s a problem.

Because a crocodile’s skull is only designed to handle so much pressure.  Go beyond that limit and the force of impact when those jaws snap shut could literally shatter their own skulls.

But evolution has spent hundreds of millions of years perfecting crocodiles, so PHYSICS ISN’T GOING TO STOP THEM.  What ends up happening in the skulls of these extremely large crocodiles is they will increase dramatically in mass to compensate for the increased forces.  A crocodile’s skull is almost exclusively solid bone, with only minimal space for nasal passages, a surprisingly advanced brain, and some slightly porous looking framework that helps the bone distribute the force over a larger area.  The effect is by far the most pronounced in Nile crocodiles, which most regularly feed on larger prey and need to make use of all that power.

Compare, 26 inch skull:

vs 29 inch skull:

Both of those are Nile crocodile skulls (or rather, replicas thereof).

And just for fun, here are the skulls of completely different (and very extinct species), Deinosuchus:

and Purussaurus:

The bigger the crocodile (within a given species), the more massive the skull needs to be to compensate for that UNBELIEVABLE bit pressure.  This is one way to see from a distance whether you are looking at a normal sized crocodile:

and a truly extraordinary individual:

One of the things about Gustave that’s so impressive is how healthy his teeth look.  A lot of large crocodiles, in their old age, have very worn down and often missing teeth.  They do replace them many times over a lifetime, but when they get very old this slows down.  Gustave, at least in every picture taken of him, had teeth that were in very good condition.

Even crocodiles much smaller than Gustave’s reported size (probably similar in size to Dominator or Lolong) tend to have smaller or more worn teeth:

than the pinnacle of his kind:

[lauvtrash-blog]

I am crying over these absolutely beautiful, beautiful, wonderful perfect boys. oh my GAH.

[danielodowd-deactivated20170124]

[annabellioncourt]

There’s a lovely old English myth that if someone who truely loved and trusted the werewolf called it by name that it would turn back to human.

Others include throwing their human clothes at it and it’d turn back but that’s a bit less romantic

[mothfishing]

#ok i understand ppl would take the romancey route here#but imagine the werewolf’s mother#or grandmother#some wizened old woman or middle aged woman#with wrinkles or hands toughened from years of labor#just going out into the woods#where even the men with axes won’t go anymore#and facing down the ravening beast#and saying#it’s time to come home

[the-golden-ghost]

I actually like the “throwing clothes at it” better cause now I’m picturing Grandma stomping out of the house at 3 AM in her slippers, arms full of clothes and facing down this horrible, snarling beast.

And then she just starts flinging clothes at it like “GODDAMN IT JEFFERY IT IS THREE IN THE FUCKING MORNING YOU GET YOUR PANTS ON AND COME BACK INSIDE RIGHT THIS MINUTE”

[deleriousfromcoffee]

I love both these versions.

[wheremyscalesslither]

Elegance

[katana-wielding-bookworm]

I want Terry Crews and Vin Diesel to do a buddy cop movie where they are both secret nerds but they don’t want the other to know. Like Vin Diesel plays D & D on weekends and Terry likes to create epic crossover fan art. Somehow they have to work undercover at Comic Con and for what ever reason I need Daniel Radcliffe to be the villain. 

[rizaoftheowls]

I’d like to add: not a character played by Dan Radcliffe. Dan Radcliffe, appearing as himself.

[dragontatoes]

no, no wait… I want Elijah Wood to play Daniel Radcliffe.

[deathchic]

Elijah Wood plays Daniel Radcliffe and his evil sidekick is Elijah Wood played by Daniel Radcliffe

[saiyan]

Hollywood doesn’t understand how much fun they can have making a movie and we’d eat that shit up so quick. why tf havent they made this already