i always thought of a king sized bed as being a bit bigger than a queen, but now that i have one, i can tell you that a king sized bed is an absurdity. i can sprawl out, and my husband can sprawl out, and the cat can sprawl out, and none of us are touching. i reach out in the night, and find only pillows and plush walruses. i reach further and eventually find his elbow. he rolls over the comforters to try and find me. “i have crossed oceans of bed to be with you,” he says. there is a vast expanse of bed untouched, unmapped, unexplored. the cat is still trying to sleep on my face.
“Oops, dropped your coat!” You cheerfully pick up the soft fur coat off the floor and carefully drape it back over the person’s chair. They stare at you with wide, stunned eyes. They’re remarkably attractive. You awkwardly wave at them and go sit down at your table.
They’re a selkie, you “gave” them back their coat, you now have a gorgeous and besotted selkie spouse. Hey, they don’t make the rules.
The next day, the attractive person you met shyly approaches you and gives you a little box with a ring inside. You blush, a little confused, and stare at them.
“I… Isn’t this… An engagement ring?”
“Well… We… We should get married by human customs as well.”
“… What?”
HARD INSPO
What if the person who returned the selkie’s coat is already married by human standards?
This sounds like a rollicking good romp, whose gonna write it?
Moira is laughing so hard that Wendy’s really afraid she’s going to fall over. “It’s not funny.”
“You…” Moira has to lean on the kitchen counter to catch her breath before she can continue. “You got engaged to a selkie by accident. You fucking dumpster fire.”
“Hey!” Wendy yelps. “I’m your wife!”
“My wife the dumpster fire.” Moira wipes her eyes and meets Wendy’s annoyed look. “Come on. This is beyond even for you. Embrace it. It’s amazing.”
Wendy grudgingly smiles. “Fine. It’s the best story at the party for the rest of my life, but it doesn’t change the fact that now the selkie wants to marry-marry me, and when I explained I was already married, she didn’t see it as an obstacle.”
Moira thinks about that as a real thing rather than the cherry on the ridiculous circumstances sundae. “Does marriage mean the same to a selkie as it does a human? Like, is she expecting financial support and emotional support and sex?”
Wendy shrugs. “I don’t know. I didn’t ask. I was kind of trying not to fear-vomit on my shoes.”
“You have her number?”
“Yeah.”
“Call her. We’ll have her over for dinner and see what the rules are.”
*
The rules, it turns out, are not complicated. The selkie–whose name is Murdina–is taken aback when Moira explains what humans consider a good marriage.
“Oh, no,” she says. “No, I don’t require all of that. I have plenty of my own money from the shipwrecks, and while I can value the emotional support you offer, I have many ways to achieve it. I have a large family and many friends in the ocean, and as we all live here at the seaside, it is very easy to see them.”
Ship wrecks? Wendy mouths at Moira. Moira files it away for later. “And the sex?” she asks.
Murdina smiles and seems to blush, though Moira isn’t quite sure. “Well, I would not be…adverse…but I have lived among humans over the many years, and I understand it is not always compatible to have more than a single bed partner.”
Moira files that away for later as well. She and Wendy have been discussing if more than a single bed partner might be just right for them, but now is not the time. “So, how is the marriage beneficial to you, then?”
“Once I am married, my coat cannot be taken. It might stolen, but it is not taken. Do you understand?”
Moira glances at Wendy. Wendy knows more about mythology than she does (part of the reason this entire situation is so fucking funny). “Darling?”
“She means that since she is sworn to a human, another human cannot lay claim against her will.”
“Yes,” Murdina agrees. “Honestly, I try to never wear my skin in public, but I was dining with an old friend, and she wanted us both to wear our finest. So, we did. When Wendy picked up my coat and gave it to me, I felt…hope.”
“Hope?” Moira asks.
Murdina looks wistful. “I knew she did not know what she had done and so was not in any way trying to entice me. She had performed a simple kindness, and I thought, perhaps, it could lead to a larger agreement between us. I don’t know every human custom, but I do know the exchange of rings.”
Moira glances at Wendy. Wendy looks confused but charmed. Moira feels the same. “You never had intent to marry Wendy as humans marry, then? I mean that you intended the ring for what it was, but you did not intend for Wendy to take on the other aspects?”
“Correct. I meant to form a union that would protect me and perhaps enrich Wendy.”
“Enrich?” Wendy asks.
“I know many, many stories and have the financial ability to travel wherever I like.” Murdina smiles at Wendy, then gives the same smile to Moira. “I would be happy to have you join us, of course. I would never demand Wendy be separate from you if she’s chosen you.”
“She has,” Moira replies, smiling softly. She looks at Wendy again, and Wendy nods. “But I think we can come to an agreement to choose you as well.”
“Lovely,” Murdina says. “Two companions would be delightful.”
this seven year old girl got half an arm (just like lusie in the gifs) 3d printed and it only cost $50
can we just compare that with the average price of buying a prosthetic
3d printing is gonna help so many people holy crap
No no no, guys, this gif set leaves out the literal best stuff from the video.
So a few years back, this guy who accidentally cut off his fingers, teamed up with a special effects artist/puppeteer and created a 3D printable prosthetic hand, that used the movement of the wearer to be able to grab things. The guys who did this said they were just going to post the schematics online, which in turn lead to creating a network of people with 3D printers, who were willing to print prosthetics for people. The network of volunteers, turned into an organization that gives prosthetic arms/hands to kids who need them. They have science types improving the designs and creating new ones, they got a grant from Google, classrooms and scout troops are getting involved and making prosthetic hands for people.
I really cannot get over this cats fucking face it’s so round and conveying an emotion that I simply am not equipped to understand
I WAS AT THIS MEETING, I MET THIS CAT. I forget his name but he was soooo sweet, I think it was Councilman Clark who brought him in! This was at the very first meeting in Denver to decide whether to ban declawing (the ban succeeded!)
Update: I emailed this post to councilman Clark, subject line “your kitty is famous”
Update 2: Councilman Clark responded, he thinks this is awesome and his cat’s name is Kit Kat
Thank you Kit Kat for protecting the cats of Denver!
I think the emotion on Kit Kat’s face is democratic engagement.
This is Arwen, she’s a Husky/Kelpie mix and a little Asshole:
“I wonder if she can jump?” my dad asks the first five minutes we have her. She perks up at the word, and clears a six-foot fence form sitting on the ground. “Oh.” Says dad. “Shit.”
Later that night she got up on the counter and ate three pounds of corned beef in roughtly 68 seconds but this was considered part of the learning curve of having a new dog.
I wake up at 4 AM to the sound of the toilet being flushed repeatedly in the hall bathroom, and assume plumbing is now posessed by angry and wasteful ghosts. I get up to disconnet it and find her in the Bathroom, standing to flush the bowl, then shoving her head in to drink the running water. I’m not totally awake, so I stand there like an idiot trying to understand this, and my sister gets up to see what the noise is, sees the same thing and also stands there. Fiance notices my absence and does the same. Mom eventually wakes up and finds us standing around like very confused zombies and almost joins the parade of baffled zombies before shreiking “THE WATER BILL!” We got her a circulating water bowl after that.
My parent’s don’t have AC, but they haveone of those “fridge on top, pull-out-freezer below” fridges. Last summer, we were remarking that we might need to shave her so she didn’t get heatstroke, to which she looked up and made a disgusted noise at us. …Then got up, used the dishrag to pull open the freezer and climbed on top of the frozen vegetables, stretching out and sighing contentedly. “Arwen,” Mom began, but was interrupted by a loud ‘WHAAAaaaaarrr?” from Arwen. “Ok you can stay there for now but we’re getting you a kiddie pool so you have to get out when we get back. Don’t eat anything.” She ate a bag of frozen green beans and farted for three days straight.
Took her walking along the lake with the long lead so she could sniff things to her hearts content. She went about shoving her head in the undergrowth, usually coming up with her head covered in leaves and pollen.
Except for the bush where she came back out with a 7-foot Bull Snake wrapping itself around her ehad and neck, trying it’s best to strangle her before she can eat it. She immediately ran back to me, the parts of her face not occupied with the snake arranged in a gleeful expression of “Look! I found Snacks!”
I screamed, not immediately regognizing that it wasn’t a rattler, and fell, splitting my knee on a rock. The screaming made her let go of the snake, but I still had to grab her and wrestle the snake off her because it lacked the sense to just scuttle away. I finaly got it lose from her (Despite her best effort to continue trying to eat it and turned around to fling it off the trail-
-And directly into the face of one of my 90-year-old neighbors who’d come out to see what the screaming and profanity was, making her collapse.
I’m pretty sure being told “I accidentally threw a snake at my neighbor.” was the highlight of that EMT’s day. Dottie was unharmed but she still doesn’t speak to me.
One day, we left her in a Harness and overhead tether in the (at the time) unfanced back yard so she could enjoy some relatively free-range outdoors time. I walked by the window not a minute later to find her completely GONE, and race out to the yard to find her. It took me a good heart-pounding five minutes to realize the overhead tether was goign UP into the ancient silver maple and realized that 1. Arwen can apparently do something really weird with her shoulders where they pop out sideways, allowing her to bear-hug the tree and 2. climb a good 40 feet into the three to fight 3. A porcupine, which i didn’t even know LIVED out here.
Fortunately, Porcupines weigh considerably less than Awen and she couldn’t get a good enough foothold to get all the way up to it, but I still had to climb up there and lower her down, barking dog profanities at the porcupine the whole way.
My parents recently acquired a mechanized recliner which has been instumental inmom’s hip surgery recovery. Execpt that Awen Also likes lounging on the furniture, and is more than capable of hitting a large, elder-friendly button with her paw. So now when she gets back from a walk or the dog park she makes a beeline for the living room, get in the recliner and pushes the button until it’s flat and stretches out in it.
My parents didn’t have a problem with this because she gets out of the chair when they ask her (Mom even tells her “Go get my chair ready” in winter because she does a good job pre-warming it), until last winter when Arwen taught my dog Charlie, another devoted couch animal how to do this.
One afternoon there was a tremendous outburst fo barkign and snarling from the living room and we rished in to find both dogs in the recliner, Charlie on the fully-reclined back and Arwen on the elevated seat and foot rest, bellowing at eachother for control of the recliner, thier movments having pitched it back to it’s two hind feet, the device swaying to and fro like a leather covered boat upon the high seas, a furry mutiny on board. Neither dog was willing to yeild the plush throne, nor to listen to the humans yelling at them to knock it the hell off, until Arwen tackled the usurper, kocking him off and managing to cantaleiver the recliner clean over, flipping it into the hall, both dogs and all humand miraculously unharmed.
She still doesn’t let him sit in it.
I love her so much.
(If you got a laugh out of this, please consider donating to my Tip Jar or Paypal to get Arwen (and Charlie!) nice treats)
Evening reblog with an additional Shenanigan I just remembered:
One of the regulars at the dog park was an unfixed basset hound with an obnoxiously indifferent owner. “Brad” shows up pretty much to smoke weed and let “Bojangles” harass the other dogs, in spite of regular complaints about Bo starting fights and trying to mount every dog, leg, and toddler in sight.
One evening, Bo was particularly interested in Arwen, aggressively following her, nipping her heels and trying to mount her, even after her usual wolverine-like Snap’n’Snarl, which has tended to discourage unwanted suitors before. Brad was Too Damn High to notice, as usual, but mom knew that if Arwen actually bit Bo, Arwen would be the one in trouble and was trying to call her when Bo made yet another attempt and Arwen finally had it.
Instead of rightfully tearing his face off, Arwen instead did what Mom described as “A Judo-style front-flip” that pulled Bo clean off the ground and threw him on his back, Arwen landing on her feet like a cat. Bo’s stubby little legs didn’t allow him to right himself before Arwen jumped on him, front paws slamming into his saggy basset balls, squatted over his face, and peed on him.
“ARWEN NO!!” howled my mother as nearly everyone else present laughed, but having made her point, Arwen daintily got off Bo, and trotted to the gate, ready to go home. Bo yelped but got up and skulked away, only moderately bruised, cowering under the bench by Brad, who finally noticed something might be amiss.
Mom remembers hearing “Dude, why is my dog all wet?” right as they were leaving. Apparently nobody told him what happened, becuase Brad still brings Bo to the park, but Bo has much better manners now.
I read this whole thing to my mom and upon reading the end part she was like “OH MY GOD! Our dog Lady once flipped another dog and I didn’t know it was a thing dogs could do!!”
So there’s that.
Update: Arwen was at the vet’s office for a check-up and daycare, and decided partway through the afternoon that the other two kelpies were annoying her, but she didn’t want to go inside to be kenneled for a nap, so she instead…
…ninja’d her way onto the vet’s roof despite there being three people in the yard watching the dogs and no clear way up there. She had a pleasant hour of watching the vet staff try to figure out how she did that and how they were going to get her down before mom came to pick her up.
“Arwen, get your furry butt down here!”
At which point Arwen obidently got down by jumping into a nearby tree that’s technically inside a neighboring house’s yard, shimmied down that like a bear, then walked out of their side yard and back around the block to come sit at Mom’s feet, putting her paws up like she expected a treat.
That tree is not accessible from the daycare yard. We still have no idea how she got up there.
Shine on you beautiful bitch.
This just gets better and better every time i see it
I…
I have fostered doggos for a good majority of my life and my brain simply cannot process half of the bullshit in this post…
1. She’s a mix of two extremely smart breeds 2. She’s a mix of two extremely energetic breeds 3. The inmates trained her to do lots of “Extracirriculars” like veritcal leaps, how to climb chain-link fence, agility courses, physical-comedy type tricks becuase they finished teaching her the regular Service Dog Cirriculum and wanted to keep working with her. 4. Due to said Extrcirriculars, she doesn’t have any fear of heights, strangers, animals, or the nonsense of other dogs.
She does do the Professional Service Animal thing when we put her vest on, but then she’s working and has things to do like teaching social skills to people or being a living stress ball to someone having a bad time, so all that brains, energy and training can be put towards a productive end, but if she hasn’t got an active job, Shenanigans Ensue.
I love everything about this omg
Update:
She ate a four inch hole in the carpet because someone dropped a pork chop there. She’s completely fine, it all passed without so much as an upset stomach on her part.
-also ate the garden hose because we weren’t spraying her with it.
-conned one of the guys that installed the AC out of his sandwich by pretending to bark at something on the other side of the house, and doubling back when he came to investigate.
-is back on the therapy circuit helping kids in a summer school program get better at reading by having them read books to her. Her favorite student right now is a boy from Venezuela who is still learning English who gives her a big hug every morning. She doesn’t normally like hugs but she puts a paw on his back to hug him back.
reblog this post with a cool animal species lets make a wholesome thread
ok ill give a headstart:
i really like leopard seals
axolotls are p rad
I LOVE THOSE
potoos look like muppets and i ove tem
here’s a quokka it’s like someone decided to splice together a wallaby and a teddy bear they literally always look like a benevolent cartoon
i don’t think you can get more wholesome than that adorable lil seed-eating smiley face. they’re not even like dolphins, cute on the outside and evil on the inside. they’re herbivores about the size of a cat. there is nothing wrong with them.
The Springhaas, or “irl pikachu” as it is sometimes known, is basically a rat shaped like a bunny abruptly caught in the middle of trying to evolve into a kangaroo. This is why they tend to look startled.
This is a dik dik. They are tiny antelopes from southern and eastern Africa–seriously so smol. With teeny hooves and teeny horns and big soulful eyes. And the name is fun to say. It comes from the alarm call that the females make. They live together in monogamous pairs.
Long Eared Jerboa
The adorable mash-up of a hamster, bunny, and kangaroo. Whiskers with no end, ears that put a fennec to shame, and adorability beyond measure!
bringing this back on your dashes
a sichuan takin bull and his daughter
often the color of donald trump’s hair and looking like a cross between a bison and a guinea pig, the takin is actually a bloody big goat-antelope. they have splendid noses, a natural smile, and share their habitat with pandas. which should be good enough for anyone.
This is an okapi. They are related to giraffe, can lick their own eyeballs and kind of always look like you just asked them for a ride to the airport but look at those ears and the little striped legs ~(*^*)~
Chambered nautilus! A living fossil! I also love axolotl though.
A cinnamon bear! Actually a member of the black bear family, they’re one of the more calm species out there. We also have matching hair ❤ Enjoy this one with a heart on its chest!
Capybaras! They’re the largest cavy species,(cavies are animals like guinea pigs) They’re BASICALLY a giant golden retriever in the skin of guinea pig.
They’re just big lumps that float around the sea. They’re non-aggressive, non-territorial herbivores that spend most of their time sleeping or eating, or they might be socializing with other manatees or investigating interesting objects.
Best of all, as of this year they are no longer endangered!!
Maine coons!! So soft and friendly!!!
Look at these babies!!!
Majestic af!!!
Because, why mow the lawn when you have ponies!
Sand Cats! Even the adults look like regular kittens, and the kittens are weapons-grade cute :3
Viscachas look like rabbits with longer tails, but they’re actually related to chinchillas. Also they have a tendency to look like meditating monks when they sunbath.
chinese water deer!
look at them there dorky fangs
A pleasantly round birb I saw at work the other day.
no pangolins? They is ooo cute.
Epaulette sharks are small, cute, and are named for their lovely shoulder decorations! Instead of swimming, they oftentimes use their fins to walk along the ocean floor. I love them.
And another small shark that walks, the cloudy catshark:
Quality snoot!
Western red bats! They’re solitary bats that live in trees and use their tails as blankets. Just look at these cozy fluffballs.
The Sooty Albatross is a personal fave. Look at their friendly lil faces.
Here is the Pudú it’s the smallest deer in the world and lives in Chile and Argentina
This is the Roseate Spoonbill!! Theres a lot of them where I live and they’re really beautiful! Similar to flamingos, thier pink coloring comes from the shrimp they eat 🙂
Stunning!
i saw a few cool birds in this one petting zoo. it’s emu!
they’re australian birds, curvy necks, long bodies, can grow up to 6 feet. here’s a funky lil thing they enjoy doing!
Honduran white bats!!!!
Atlas Moths, one of the largest known moth species! They’re found in the east parts of Asia, and their wings are blended in to look like snake heads to protect itself from predators!
These big units are amazing to keep as pets, soft as well!!!
bearded vultures!!!!
They are huge awesome birds (I swear they’re descended from dragons) and they actually wear makeup!
They basically dye their feathers with red earth, I think. The reddest they can find.
oh and a bonus: this is how big they are compared to people. 😊
Also, they eat bones
The manul (or Pallas cat) is the size of a housecat, only ridiculously floofy and with the face of a grumpy Muppet. Unlike most cats they have round pupils rather than vertical slits. They live in the steppes of central Asia, southern Russia and western China.
HE JUST KEEPS GETTING MORE CATS AND GIVING THEM BETTER NAMES AND SHOWING US BETTER PICTURES THIS MAN AND HIS CAT FAMILY ARE AMAZING I LOVE THEM ALL SO MUCH
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