Queen of Paper

Science fiction, mysteries, and flights of fancy are my forte.

[druid-for-hire]

[image id: a four-page comic. it is titled “immortality” after the poem by clare harner (more popularly known as “do not stand at my grave and weep”). the first page shows paleontologists digging up fossils at a dig. it reads, “do not stand at my grave and weep. i am not there. i do not sleep.” page two features several prehistoric creatures living in the wild. not featured but notable, each have modern descendants: horses, cetaceans, horsetail plants, and crocodilians. it reads, “i am a thousand winds that blow. i am the diamond glints on snow. i am the sunlight on ripened grain. i am the gentle autumn rain.” the third page shows archaeopteryx in the treetops and the skies, then a modern museum-goer reading the placard on a fossil display. it reads, “when you awaken in the morning’s hush, i am the swift uplifting rush, of quiet birds in circled flight. i am the soft stars that shine at night. do not stand at my grave and cry.” the fourth page shows a chicken in a field. it reads, “i am not there. i did not die” / end id]

a comic i made in about 15 hours for my school’s comic anthology. the theme was “evolution”

[queenofpaper]

The Dracolisk: an improbable creature

Dracolisks are weird, guys.

I’ll be perfectly honest with you.  When I first played Inquisition, I hated them.  They looked wrong.  They did not look plausible.  They were obviously horses reskinned into a draconic creature, and nothing about them looked right, and I hated them.

Then I realised what they were.

They’re shrink-wrapped dinosaurs.

Shrink-wrapping refers to a very old trend in paleoart where extinct creatures are recreated without thought for soft tissue.  It ignores the possibility of heavy musculature or fat or cartilage or skin flaps or hair or feathers, and tends to create very weird, creepy, skeletal creatures.  Many of these weird, skeletal interpretations of dinosaurs have become the common ones.  Many sauropods have been traditionally drawn as having skeletal, sunken faces, but it’s likely more accurate to depict them as having fleshier faces than that.

So the dracolisk?  Almost exactly what happens if you shrink-wrap a horse skeleton.

Is this intentional on Bioware’s part?  I can’t say.  I like to think it is.

At any rate, this is the dracolisk.  And it’s still very very weird.  It’s an interesting sort of parallel evolution to the horse, and yet the dracolisk is very obviously a carnivore.  Look at those teeth!  So why does a carnivore look like a horse?

Well, let’s take a look at horses to start with.

Horses are runners.  They’re not as fast as some animals, but they have stamina.  They can run for a good distance before they tire.  They have long legs, because that helps you run faster.  They have hooves, which are hard and help absorb impact from running -- similarly, the dracolisk appears to have hard, clawed feet.  This is not a creature that can grab onto prey with its forelimbs to take them down.  Horses are native to open plains and grasslands, where long legs and an ability to run for a long distance are beneficial.  Dracolisks are probably also native to open spaces, either plains or deserts, but their anatomy is going to limit how they hunt.  Cheetahs hunt with speed, but they’re only capable of short bursts, and their small heads (an adaptation for reduced weight and greater speed) limits them to medium-to-small prey, and they use their claws to bring down their dinner.  Dracolisks are more likely to be persistence hunters.  They run down their prey until it tires, and then takes it down by grabbing it in its powerful jaws.

I like to make real-life comparisons in these, and I was a bit stumped, until I remembered the maned wolf.

The maned wolf is not a wolf.  It looks a lot like a fox, but it’s not a fox, either.  It is a canine, but it’s only distantly related to other members of the Canidae.  It also has extremely long legs.  It is also native to grasslands.  It also kills its prey with its jaws, sometimes giving it a shake.  It’s not as much of a long distance runner as the dracolisk is, but the similarity is there.

I like dracolisks now.  I mean, my favourite mount is always going to be the big purple deer, but the dracolisks make for a nice change.

[queenofpaper]

Spiders With Friends

There’s a very peculiar thing about the spiders of Thedas.  Well, two.  The first this is that they’re fucking huge.  The second is that they’re social.  That doesn’t really seem like a big deal in itself, but it’s definitely peculiar, for a spider.

Spiders are not known to be social.  Most of them are pretty aggressive towards other spiders, in fact.  Most are cannibals, eating their own kind, generally females eating males because, as noted in my first dragon discussion, female spiders tend to be huge in comparison to males.  There are even spiders that will eat their mother shortly after birth.  In many spider species, courtship involves all sorts of signals and gifts in order to A. convince the female that the male creeping towards her isn’t a prey item, and B. convince the female not to eat him anyway.  Jumping spiders are a particular favourite of mine for this.   They dance.  They “drum” by shaking their abdomen.  They wave their arms like they just don’t care.  Sometimes they flash pretty colours.

Buuuuut that’s not what’s going on with the giant spiders in Thedas.  Giant spiders in Thedas come in groups.  They fight you together.  And there are queen spiders, implying a eusocial hive structure similar to what’s found in ants and bees: one or a small number of breeding females, attended to by non-breeding individuals subject to some variety of caste system.

Eusociality has never been observed in spiders, at least not on Earth.  It’s found in insects, crustaceans, and in two species of mole rats.  Social behaviour in spiders is generally limited to communal webs, sharing of prey, and cooperative brood care.  They’re usually tropical, and by working together they can create huge webs capable of taking down exceptionally large insects, or even bats and birds, more food than any spider could on their own.

This isn’t eusociality, however, because even in species where not all the females of the colony breed, all are capable of it.  There’s no queen.

So what’s going on in Thedas?  Well, there’s a couple options.

One option is that yeah, there’s an evolved eusociality in spiders in Thedas.  Being gigantic they don’t build hives or nests in the way we think of it, and possibly some of them are eternally mobile in the way some army ants are, never building a permanent nest.  Oh, they’ll settle down in one place for a while if the hunting is good, but they’re always ready to pack up their eggs and move on to a new area if needed.  The smaller giant spiders (heh) are her reproductively sterile children, will never grow larger, and will spend their entire lives serving their mother.  Occassionally she will produce virgin queens and males, who will crawl off into the tunnels of the Deep Roads to mate and form new eusocial groups.

This is a good option.  I like this option.  But it’s also not the only one.

The other thing that could be going on is that we have another type of social aggregation going on.  One is that we have something similar to what we see in dragons: a large female attended to by her harem of many smaller males.  Completely possible and plausible.  She mates with them, they help raise the brood, and knowing spiders there’s some cannibalism in there.

And that’s okay.

The other option, well.  It’s that these guys, that you see everywhere and range from three to six feet high?  Well.  Those are babies.  No, those gigantic Queen Spiders and Monstrous Spiders?  Those are the fully mature adults.

A queen is simply a mother of a brood of spiderlings.  In time they’ll grow large enough to go off on their own (though infant mortality is high, between cannibalistic competitors, darkspawn, and roaming adventurers), but in the meantime they’ll stay close to their mother.  They may even hang around long enough to help care for a subsequent brood or two before heading off on their own.  Spiders on Earth tend not to care for their young once they’re hatched, but it takes time to grow so large, and while a fully grown spider is almost untouchable, they’re much more vulnerable when they’re young.  They hang around their mother like baby alligators, hunting on their own but enjoying the protection of her presence... at least until she decides they’re big enough to fend for themselves and drives them off.

There’s precedent for this in spiders, as well, as this is basically what wolf spiders do.  She keeps them near for a few weeks before they’re big enough to go off on their own.  No other spider does this.

All three are perfectly good ideas.  I’m not sure which one I like better.

[queenofpaper]

Dragon Cults

So, since the very first time I played Dragon Age: Origins, a hundred years ago, I’ve been really fascinated with the concept of a dragon cult.  Not just because it’s a bunch of people worshipping a dragon, but because, as per the codex entries, this is not an isolated incident, but a thing that happens over and over again.  Oh, certainly, there’s the Tevinter dragon gods, but they apparently crop up in other places, with people who have never heard of Tevinter gods.  There is something about dragons that compels people to worship them.

Members of a dragon cult live in the same lair as a high dragon, nurturing and protecting its defenseless young. In exchange, the high dragon seem to permit those cultists to kill a small number of those young in order to feast on draconic blood. That blood is said to have a number of strange long-term effects, including bestowing greater strength and endurance, as well as an increased desire to kill. 

I’m interested in this for one specific reason.  Male dragons also fill this role.  It seems to me that dragon cultists are being affected by whatever process a dragon uses to bind her drakes to her as well.  First, a talk about symbiosis:

Sometimes symbiosis is obligate, meaning the species involved absolutely need each other.  Sometimes it’s facultative, and they’ll do it if the opportunity presents itself, but they can make do on their own, as well.   There are three types of symbiosis, though the boundaries are often rather fuzzy and unclear.  Mutualism is when two species exist in such a way that they are both benefited by the relationship.  The classic example is the clownfish and the anenome it lives in.  The clownfish gains a place to live and protection from predators, the anemone gains protection from things that might eat it and also nutrients from clownfish poop. Nature is gross and nothing is wasted.

Commensalism is a relationship where one species benefits, and the other is not affected at all.  Examples include remora hitching a ride on sharks, or house sparrows specializing in living in human cities.  Parasitism is where one species benefits, and the other is actively harmed.  Parasites can include internal parasite like tapeworms, micropredators like mosquitoes, and a particular phenomenon called brood parasitism, which is what in particular I want to talk about today.  Brood parasites are those species which use other species to care for their young.  The most well known is the cuckoo, or at least some species of cuckoo:

Cuckoos are best known for their habit of laying their eggs in the nests of other types of birds.  Some ducks lay eggs in their own nest and also those of their neighbours.  The benefit to this is obvious.  Raising children takes a lot of time, energy, and resources.  Sometimes it’s easier just to, well, offload that responsibility onto someone else.

Closer to the phenomenon of dragon cults are slave-making ants.  Slave-making ants are exactly what they sound like.  They’re a form of brood parasite that supplements the workers of their own nest by raiding the nests of other (usually closely related) species of ants, stealing eggs or larvae, and bringing them back to their own.  These stolen slave ants, when grown, serve the nest they’ve been raised in, raising the actual offspring of the slaver ants.

So, dragons.

Dragon cults are mostly a form of parasitism, though there are some small benefits to the cultists, as noted above, but it involves drinking the blood of dragon hatchlings.  From the high dragon’s perspective, sacrificing a few of her many, many babies is worth it to bind some humans to her.  As do her drakes, they help care for her offspring and protect her from lesser threats.  She doesn’t need this, but it’s of use if she has the opportunity.

But what if this is how she binds her drakes as well?

This is veering away from established biology, I know.  And it’s hard to really predict how actual magic would affect evolution.  Still, it’s true that within the world of Thedas, blood magic includes the ability to control minds.  And for a high dragon, this is an advantageous ability to have.

My proposal:

A high dragon attracts drakes to her, likely through pheromones.  When her first children are born, she sacrifices a few dragonlings and encourages the drakes to drink the blood, binding them to her in a form of blood magic.  This prevents the drakes from leaving for a rival dragon, as well as reducing competitive aggression between the drakes.  She is also capable of turning this inherent blood magic to use on humans, with some luck and skill, who will slavishly devote themselves to her just as the drakes do.  Humans, being humans, interpret this in a religious sense.  The dragon is a Tevinter god, or Andraste reincarnated, or something equally amazing and great.

Meanwhile, as far as the dragon is concerned, everything is as it should be.

[queenofpaper]

Dragons and Sexual Dimorphism

In the world of Thedas, this is a male dragon:

And this is a mature female dragon:

That is... a very significant size difference.  Phenomenally so.  And yet, we can intuit a few things about dragons from this.  So, to start, what do we know about the dragon life cycle?  Dragons are hatched, roughly deer-sized.  They have high infant mortality.  Female dragons are winged, and when young travel long distances to find a nesting site and territory.   Males are flightless and live out their lives in the caves and territory of a female, hunting for her and caring for her young.

But this isn’t entirely unprecedented in nature either.  This actually most closely mirrors the lifestyle of many spiders: a huge, mostly sedentary female, and tiny roving males.

For example, here is an orb weaver and her tiny suitor.

Spiders are also known cannibals.  One of the reasons male spiders tend to be so much smaller than their counterparts is that it allows them to live longer: a bigger male is more likely to be eaten by a female, and a female is more likely to not bother eating such a tiny meal as that.  The difference between spiders and dragons (besides the obvious) is that dragons are vertebrates and are probably going to engage in sex, while spiders tend to just offer a female spider a small package of sperm for her to use at her leisure.  However, dragons don’t start out huge.  When dragons leave the nest, however, they really aren’t much bigger than the drakes.

I propose that the life cycle of a dragon goes like this:

A dragon is hatched.  After surviving to adolescence, she leaves her mother’s territory, flying in search of a new home far away from drakes she would be related to.  Once she has found it, she attracts young drakes in the area seeking a female, and mates with them, if she doesn’t decide to eat them.  Mating triggers a change in her life cycle, as she ceases to be a roaming creature and settles down into a sedentary life, with her harem of males hunting for her.  She’s also likely capable of storing sperm for later use, a really bizarre thing from a human point of view, since we can’t do it, but incredibly common in the animal world.  Compare this idea to the life cycle of something like a queen bee, who stores the sperm from the drones she mates with (a one-time thing for a drone, since they die right after) and uses it her entire life to produce female worker bees.  Not the males, interestingly.  Sex determination in bees is haploid/diploid, with females (queen and workers both) being a mix of genetic information from their mother and father, two sets of chromosomes (just like we have), and males having only one set of chromosomes from their mother.  Male bees don’t have a father.  Strange but true.

Matings after the high dragon reaches her full size may or may not happen, though I suspect she continues to attract drakes regardless. The drakes, in turn for the protection granted by living in the nest of a high dragon, take a parental role with the dragonlings (as the female’s massive size makes that... tricky).  Female dragons aren’t particularly maternal, I think.  Think of those dragon fights in Inquisition where she’ll just nonchalantly throw her children at you, which always makes me laugh.  As they have no notion of which dragonlings are biologically theirs, and there’s no way for them to tell, it’s in their best interest to care for all the babies equally.

There may be something else, too, to their attraction of drakes, but I think that should be left for another post.

[queenofpaper]

What is a halla?

The codex entry for halla in Dragon Age Origins, which I’ve been replaying, goes like this:

No creature is more revered by the Dalish than the halla. No other animal has a god of its own. These white stags are much larger than ordinary deer, and the Dalish halla keepers carve their antlers as they grow, making them curve into intricate designs. In ancient times, these stags bore elven knights into combat, but since the fall of the Dales, they are used less as mounts and more to pull the aravels.

Bolding mine.  And I was thinking about this, and it is strictly bullshit.  I mean, to be fair, Bioware seems to have moved away from this idea with later games, and that’s a good thing.  Because that would be bullshit.  So let’s file this idea into “dumb things people say about the Dalish” rather than “things the Dalish actually do.”  This is especially true as wild halla are shown with the same antlers/horns, and that brings me to my second observation: the games are very inconsistent with their terminology for whether halla have antlers or horns.  This might not seem like a big deal, but antlers and horns are very different things.

Sure, they seem pretty similar on the face of it.  They’re not.

An antler is an growth of bone.  They grow annually, starting out as cartilage covered in “velvet,” a hairy sort of skin rich in blood vessels to feed the growing tissue.  Eventually the cartilage calcifies into bone, the velvet is shed, and we have the classic bony antlers.  At the end of the year, these are shed. Next year the deer will grow new antlers.

Velvet is... actually kind of gross.  Anyway the idea of carving an antler to shape its growth is... silly.  it’s full of blood, or the tissue is already dead.  And all your work would fall off at the end of the year.  Incidentally, I’m inclined to disbelieve that halla shed their antlers.  Halla antlers are rare and treasured enough to not be something easily obtained at the end of the breeding season, and we always see halla with headgear. 

So are halla antlers actually horns?  A horn is a permanent structure.  They have a bony core full of living tissue with a layer of keratin over the top which grows with each year, frequently in rings. They’re frequently curved or ridged.  Goats and sheep and cows and antelope have horns.  The delicate curving features of halla horns is honestly more typical of some antelope, but they lack the keratin ridges.

It goes without saying that carving a horn like this would be even more impossible and cruel.  So.  Let’s just throw that idea out fully, shall we?

So halla horns are not exactly antlers and not exactly like typical horns.  But there is a third option, and it’s a very weird and unique one.  Behold: the pronghorn antelope:

The pronghorn isn’t actually an antelope, though they’re distantly related.  Pronghorns are the only living member of the family Antilocapridae. Their closest living relatives are actually the Giraffoidea, the modern giraffes and okapi.  Giraffes and okapi don’t have horns like pronghorns; they have ossicones, which are sort of like horns except they’re covered in skin.  Pronghorns’s horns are bone, permanent, and while they are covered in skin, the skin turns to a keratinous sheath which is shed and regrown annually.  This is already sounding more like a halla to me.  In fact, in the fossil record exist several examples of what are called sivatheres, relatives of the Giraffoidea that possessed large, branching ossicones that looked far more like deer antlers than anything else seen today.  So the idea of a deer-like creature with permanent horns like the halla has isn’t entirely improbable.

To sum up: halla are not deer, and are more closely related to giraffes.

I’d love to see Thedas’s take on a giraffe, wouldn’t you?

[catrood]

Living in Federal Housing

I don’t post very often, because I’m usually just here for the pretty pictures and gifs that cross my dash every day. I’m grateful for them, because for a little while, I can forget the shit I’m in.

Let me preface this by saying a few things:

1. I have fibromyalgia, rheumatoid arthritis and a host of mental illnesses (Bipolar II, Generalized Anxiety Disorder, Seasonal Affective Disorder, Social Phobia) that make functioning on a day to day basis difficult. Not impossible, most days, but difficult. I have canes in my house for those days when my knees/hips just are not having this movement thing. I have NSAIDS (Ibuprofen, prescription strength) to take on the days when I just can’t cope. I also have a wonderful daughter who can and has stepped up and helped me out sometimes.

2. I go to school full time. You can imagine, that with the host of illnesses I bring to the table, that doing so is a major accomplishment. I’m very proud of myself and the fact that most of the time, I’m at least current with my homework.

3. I have two disabled kids. Daughter has a few mental health issues, and Son has Down Syndrome. They’re wonderful kids, but it does make it challenging sometimes.

4. I live in public housing. That’s right, the federal government subsidizes my rent so that we can have a safe place to live in. This is where it all begins to go sideways. 

Because of things mentioned in 1-3, I often have a hard time scrubbing the white tile floors that we are given in our apartments. Sometimes, the only way to get them clean is not with a Swiffer (which I have and use) nor a steam mop (I love mine to death, it’s a Dirt Devil), but to get down on my hands and knees and actually scrub the floors. You can imagine that this is a problem, right? With documentation, any reasonable person would assume that this might be an issue. I am willing to get that documentation. 

However, Housing is saying my apartment isn’t clean enough. They’re saying that, in fact, my house is “filthy” because I am physically incapable of scrubbing the tile floors on my hands and knees. 

They also have said that there is rotting food in my fridge. Remember I mentioned school? I showed them the documentation from the Biology experiment (I’m taking Biology online, so I have to do my experiments at home) but still, rotting food. Doesn’t matter if it’s for school or not. (If he had come a day later to inspect, it would not have been in there.)

As well, my ceilings are filthy. That’s right, my ceilings. I am unsteady on my feet and cannot stand on a ladder and feel safe. In fact, I start to have a panic attack. Oh well, ceilings are filthy, scrub them.

I have an Emotional Support Animal. Scotty is his name, and he’s a tuxedo cat of the asshole variety. But I love him and he’s definitely my cat. They claimed his litter box, that had not been used in hours was “illegal”. I should not have had it in my house, because they claim to never have gotten the paperwork on him being an ESA. 

Then they lectured me on the use of the exhaust fan in the bathroom. I know how to use one, mine is just crap and doesn’t work very well. Well, obviously I don’t know how to use one properly. 

So, last Thursday, they came in and inspected and found all those things wrong with the house. Tomorrow, they will be here again. This time if I fail, I’m homeless with my kids and my cat. I have been scrubbing to the best of my ability in the hopes that it’s good enough. My kids have been cleaning. My brother, Sam, is coming up from Cincy to help me tomorrow, in the hopes that it’s enough. 

This is what living in federal housing means: Terror that they are going to kick you out over something you cannot physically do. And their answer for that: “Well, then hire someone who can.” Because obviously, living in federal housing I have the money to hire a cleaning service. Living here also means that they can come in and inspect with only 48 hours notice, so you have to keep the house looking perfect. It can never get out of line, or they might see it and then what will you do? You’ll fail inspection, that’s what. 

So why have I gone through this big long thing? To show that by being poor, I’m subject to closer scrutiny than anyone else. To show that by being poor, I can be made homeless because of several physical disabilities by the same people who are designed to help prevent that same homelessness. 

When you’re poor, they want to keep you that way and make you grovel. They want you to beg for the little bit of help that they’re willing to give. (Food stamps are another post altogether.) When you’re poor? Don’t you dare step out of line, or do something that “they” think is wrong - and that includes trying to better your situation. 

And before someone asks: No, I cannot afford to live anywhere else. It’s this, or the street. 

[senpaitheking-deactivated201403]

That’s not cool Tumblr and you know it, you’re basically forcing people to agree to this bullcrap. 

[deactivated420-deactivated20140]

of course they’re forcing you to agree. if you’re gonna use their services then you have to abide by their rules.

[andrusi]

yeah, that’s why it’s called “terms of service”

because they will let you use their service if you agree to their terms

[supersaiyansickomobb-blog]

What is the point in forcing you to agree if there is only one option that is so stupid it’s like a presidential election with 1 candidate a complete farce to be honest

[knightzoned]

Are you guys just not familiar with how websites in general tend to work

[closettherapist-blog]

"I would like to buy a hamburger."

"Ok, that costs $1."

"I don’t want to pay that."

"Then you can’t have a hamburger."

"Why are you forcing me to agree to this? You’re only giving me one option!"

[archiemcphee]

This incredibly lifelike little unicorn, who looks ready to scamper, cavort, and make all of your dreams come true, is a sculpture, entitled Aura, created by R. Wake, an artist who goes by the name Indigo-Ocean on DeviantArt.

Aura stands 12” tall and was made using copper tube, aluminium and steel wire armature, Padico Premier stoneware clay, taxidermy glass eyes, recycled mohair, rayon flocking, silicone ears/facial features, resin, and polymer clay.

We can’t look away. We know this is just a photo and that the photo is of a sculpture, but we can’t shake the feeling that this awesome unicorn is about to blink. 

[queenofpaper]

For you, in MS Paint: a faithful recreation of my morning.

[neolutionist]

[queenofpaper]

Wal-Mart, and adventures therein.

The first thing you have to understand is that I hate Wal-mart.

I hate it with a burning fiery passion.  I hate it with the anger of fifty Incredible Hulks.  I was going to say with the fury of a thousand suns, but then I started wondering exactly how angry stars get, and while I'm not sure, I suspect the Hulk is angrier.  Wal-Mart is my kryptonite.  I fucking can't stand it.  It's a rare thing for me to get out of there without sweaty palms, a pounding heart, and a sinking feeling in my stomach.

And yet I do occassionally go there.  There are two reasons for this:

1. I live with an anxiety disorder, and sometimes part of living with anxiety is doing things that scare the crap out of me just because otherwise I would do nothing at all, and

2. $15 for a pair of jeans is pretty damn irresistable.

And this is where I was today.  Early Thursday morning, poking through Wal-Mart's clothing section for cheap pants, intent on getting in and out as quickly as possible.  And at last, I was done.  I had soap and toothpaste, I had a pair of khakis and a pair of jeans, I had a stretchy haircomb, I was ready to get the hell out of there.  Just one more thing.  I would wander over into the grocery section, pick up some pizza pockets, and be gone.

And there I was, walking out of the freezer section with my pepperoni treats, when I heard a loud snap and my sandal flew off my foot.

These sandals were two, maybe three years old.  They were brown and gold flipflops, made of hard recycled rubber, durable as hell and comfortable as fuck.  I wore them walking, I wore them camping and fishing, I wore them to work.  They were completely waterproof and did I mention comfortable?  They cost me $12 at Shoppers Drug Mart.  I loved these sandals.  I was aware they were getting a little worn down, it happens, but I wasn't prepared for my right sandal to sudden self-destruct in the grocery section of Wal-Mart.

I made a brave attempt to sort of slide along with my foot in the broken sandal.  It wasn't happening.  Add in the fact that this is my driving foot, and it became obvious that I was going to need to a replacement shoe, stat.

Over I went to the shoe section, wearing one sandal like a champ with the other foot bare, hoping desperately I wasn't going to catch some terrible foot disease.  I was on a mission: I needed sandals or some sort of shoe I could wear sans chausettes, it needed to be cheap, and it needed to be a ladies' size 10, preferably a 10 wide.  But the thing about sandals is that, at the very end of August, in a part of Canada where due to latitude and altitude the nights are already dropping down to a few degrees above freezing, there just aren't that many sandals in Wal-mart.

And absolutely none of them were size 10.

I tried some size 9 shoes in desperation, since sometimes size 9 will work, but not these.  I was stuck wandering around in a Wal-Mart, with one bare foot in strict violation of No Shirt, No Shoes, No Service, although possibly one shoe gave me a loophole, and they had no sandals in my size to replace the one I had lost.  I was, I thought, going to be stuck here forever, or walk across the parking lot in bare feet, which was going to be a hell of a lot more unpleasant than the store's floor.

In the end, I stomped over to the men's sandals, where there was even less selection, but I managed to find some workable flipflops.  I often wear men's shoes, as I find them more comfortable as well as being easier to find in sizes above 9, but I don't like extending that to sandals because sandals often don't work very well for crossdressing feet.  I found some $5 sandals, and stomped over to the till in my one bare foot and my one good sandal to purchase my shit.  I asked the cashier if he had any scissors to cut the elastic binding the sandals together, and he told me Wal-Mart doesn't even trust cashiers with tape, let alone sharp objects, but directed me over to Customer Service.

Have a gold star, bro.  You're cool.

[queenofpaper]

l

[joepublic]

[queenofpaper]

It's a cynodont, a type of therapsid (warm-blooded hairy reptile things that are considered to be the ancestors of modern mammals).  THE MORE YOU KNOW!

[queenofpaper]

Kisses :)

[queenofpaper]

When I got my rats, Molly in particular was very hand-shy. Though possibly the cuddliest, gentlest, most affectionate rodent in the world, she was very nervous about being picked up or held for any reason. We're now at the point where she will submit to being held on her back and even use the opportunity to groom between her toes until she decides it's too undignified and squirms away. Also, now you know what rat vagina looks like. You're welcome.

[queenofpaper]

An animation of every nuclear detonation since 1945.  Nuclear war may, in fact, be redundant.  Holy shit.