Rumble shook his head. “Not sure that’s your problem, Boss, if
you don’t mind me sayin’. Your problem is, you think too much.
It’ll be fine, you’ll see.” And he strolled off to find his
brother, leaving Megatron sitting on a makeshift bench below an
illegal fighting pit, staring at his hands and wondering whether he
could really do this. True, when he’d smashed his fist into that
Senate enforcer and felt plating buckle beneath his fingers, felt the
warmth of living fuel spatter over his face, it seemed to awaken
something in him; but to take on a lackey of the Senate in the heat
of the moment was one thing. To walk calmly into a gladiatorial
arena and hurt a complete stranger, possibly kill him – that was
something else.
In the tense quiet, Megatron could hear someone humming. Then
singing, very softly:
Rain fall sharp, and the mist rise cold,
And the foreman come down for his purple gold,
He’ll take it from your cart, or he’ll take it from your
lines,
Or he’ll take it from your spark, ’cause you’re married to
the mines.
Megatron rose without really meaning to, and followed the sound until
he stood over a spindly bot with a drill arm that reminded him, for a
painful moment, of Impactor. “Where were you a miner?” Megatron
murmured.
The bot started. “Uh – Luna-2. Before the energon started
drying up. You?”
“Messatine. Much the same.” He sat down a little ways down the
bench, giving the stranger some space. “We had the same song.
Only… some of us came up with a variation, on the chorus.”
“Yeah?” The bot seemed grateful for the distraction, and turned
towards Megatron. “You remember it?”
“Oh yes.” Megatron hummed deep in his throat, finding his pitch.
Then, in a voice a little rusted with disuse, he began to sing.
Rain fall sharp, and the moon rise blue,
No purple gold without me and you,
Take your axe, take your hammer, meet the foreman at the door,
Tell him we ain’t married to the mines no more!
The song began in silence, but by the time Megatron was halfway
through, there were a few mutters, here and there; whispers of,
“Mmm-hmm,” or, “Right on,” though their owners kept their
faces turned away. By the third line, a few smiles were breaking
out, and when Megatron finished, he lifted his head to find half the
room looking at him, grins on their faces.
“Sing it again, miner,” someone called.
Megatron obliged, and this time, a few other voices joined in. The
third time, most of the bots in the room were singing, and the rest
were stamping along with the beat; and when Megatron roared out,
“Take your axe, take your hammer, meet the SENATE at the door!”
cheers broke out.
The whole crowd chorused back, “Tell
’em we ain’t married to the mines no more!”
“Boss?”
Megatron turned. Rumble was grinning in the doorway, but all he said
was, “We’re up.”
“Hey, miner!” a voice shouted after him as Megatron turned to
leave. “What’s your name?”
“Megatron.” And with that, Megatron of Tarn entered the arena
for his very first gladiatorial match.
He didn’t say, “With an R.” He didn’t say, “As in
neutron.” But for once, he didn’t have to, because no one got it
wrong. When he won, the waiting fighters started chanting, and the
audience took it up in turn: “Meg-a-tron! Meg-a-tron!”
And Megatron – always thinking – began to see the shape of
something forming, in the faces and the voices and the fuel-slick
sands beneath his feet.
Glofish is technically a brand name, the fish themselves are either danios (left) or tetras (right). Which is important to know when you’re doing your research. Both types are schooling fish, so you need several of them. I could be misremembering, so if I’m wrong, someone please feel free to correct me! But I believe a healthy school consists of no less than seven fish. Which means that, even though the fish themselves are small, they need quite a bit of space, so you’ll need a decent sized tank and filter. They’re also tropical, which means you’ll need a heater capable of appropriately warming the size tank you get. Tetras and danios tend to be a fairly ‘easy’ type of fish, all things considered, but they’ll still need water changes and they still need specific care, so make sure to really dig deep and do that research. And, if your little brother is still quite young, keep in mind that it might be you or your parents doing most of the actual work.
It would be great if any of my followers knew a few reliable websites/forums to find fish care requirements, so if anyone has suggestions, please comment!
You’re going to need at least a 20gal tank to keep those happy, cycled, filtered, and heated. A 10g is too small, they need lots of room to move.
Skirt tetras (sort of piranha-shaped with longer fins)
and red-tail black sharks (little wiggly thing with whiskers and a down-facing mouth).
All but the shark are schooling fish. All the schooling fish are also very active species, prone to chasing each other. You can mix them with non-Glo versions of themselves, they don’t care in the slightest.
Plantedtank.net is good for general aquarium care. Bare minimum, look up how to cycle an aquarium.
If he wants a single fish in a smallish aquarium, a betta in a 5g tank is good. Again, filtered, heated, and cycled.
Weekly water changes, daily feeding, general monitoring for diseases, and at-least-monthly water tests are all vital parts of aquarium keeping. Also, if the brother loses interest, what happens to the fish? Flushing them down the toilet is horrendously inhumane, releasing them into “the wild” spells their doom and can introduce pathogens to the native environment, animal shelters don’t usually take fish, and Craigslist is iffy at best. Most chain pet stores don’t take fish back, but smaller ones sometimes do. Ask.
the NYT 2018 midterms morning-after narrative, with all the chin-stroking about mixed results and the bland end of the Dems driving the successes, seems really wrong to me and frankly kind of enraging. obviously there were disappointments but, net-net, this is not a morning for wailing and gnashing of teeth. I compulsively wasted hours and hours of my life following this shit last night, so I’m just going to lay out some of the story points supporting a more robust and optimistic narrative real quick
the objective was always to take the House; the Senate was always an almost hopeless moonshot
we did take the House, decisively
the things that follow from that are now going to be realized. it means not only more robust Trump oversight, the tax return subpoenas and protection for the Mueller investigation and so on, but also much needed brakes on the runaway GOP legislative agenda. the Republicans are not going to get to try to repeal ACA again, or kill Social Security, or defund Planned Parenthood, or have their way with the 2020 census or the budget. those things are all huge
the >9% popular-vote D advantage is comparable to or bigger than past midterm “wave” elections, including 1994’s Tea Party wave. that’s literally how we fucking took the House despite 1. the disastrous 2010 census gerrymandering and resulting structural 5- to 7-point GOP advantage and 2. the more recent horrifying surge of strongman fascism. excuse me but we 110% fucking deserve wave status
got a bunch of governorship wins that really fucking matter! Scott Walker, don’t let the door hit you on your way out of Wisconsin! welcome home, Michigan! fuck you and the horse you rode in on, Kris Kobach!
what’s not the matter with Kansas, multiple excellent results there with both Laura Kelly and Sharice Davids winning upsets. possibly they’ve finally put it together that austerity is terrible and are positioning themselves to start fixing the damage. good going, Kansas
this whole weird line that it was moderate Dems that drove all the key successes and dynamic progressives only ever have any chance in the very bluest coastalest elitest cityest races is bullshit. I can’t believe the NYT can say that with a straight face. Sharice Davids is NOT your bland straight white guy DINO, and Kansas is, um, not the Bronx? Pennsylvania is literally going to have a DSA caucus? Beto O’Rourke lost what was, come on, a moonshot race by a high-suspense hair, he clearly has cemented his rising-star status and generated real excitement and momentum
meanwhile DINO “moderate” poster children Heitkamp and Donnelly lost us two (2) Senate seats. wtf with this narrative?
several of the highest profile GOP wins were in states with especially flagrant and egregious voter suppression. we’re all looking at you, Georgia, North Dakota, TEXAS whose Senate race was still close as hell. this is one of the things a Democratic House is well positioned to make a goddamn fuss about.
also Michigan and uh I think another state passed anti-gerrymandering ballot initiatives and, may I goddamn repeat, official face of ‘voter suppression is actually good’ Kris Kobach is out on his ass. plus, granted Florida is a trainwreck by a hundred thousand or so people again, they’ve also just reenfranchised 1.4 million ex-felons, so that may be goddamn changing in future
Virginia is a blue state now btw
New York internal state shit here but the state senate has finally thrown off its shackles so maybe we can actually get some good goddamn legislation passed, seriously if you don’t live here you have no idea the bullshit that’s been going on in Albany thanks to so-called moderates
is everything in the garden lovely? hell to the fuck no, shit sucks in abundance out there, but we knew that! that’s not the surprising bit!
give hardworking blues the credit they deserve 2k18
we’ve started feeding this tortoiseshell-point siamese recently. she’s beautiful, aside from the fact she has disturbingly big, bulging blue eyes. we’ve started calling her… ‘goop’
it’s goop!
GUESS WHO HAD GOOPLETS! SIX ENTIRE BABIES! mama goop held onto her gooplings for an entire week longer than she had to, so the gooplitos came out very well done and fluffy!!
Aries: Something old. Something without teeth or eyes, dragging its great tendrils along the ocean floor, trawling for the corpses of leviathans.
Taurus: Something fast. Something hidden by the dust storms. Something with wings and paws and talons and a beak. A golden blur from a rising savannah sun.
Gemini: Something drawn to the sites of naval battles. Hardened, twisted shells adorned with the eyes of dead sailors. Casualties of war pressed into grim pearls.
Cancer: Something that looks like a hen. Something that disguises itself among the others in the coop. Rotten eggs. A second, gaping maw.
Leo: Something with a sting worse than death. A mane of quills. Pellets of bone and hair. The king of the arid mountains.
Virgo: Something that sits just below the water. Long flexible antennae flashing to mimic the dancing of fireflies. Whiplike, threshing tentacles covered in stinging barbs.
Libra: Something pure white. Great wings and soft fur host to intoxicating spores. A great proboscis for feeding on sleeping giants. Thousands of lidless, orange eyes.
Scorpio: Something slow and heavy. Powerful arms terminate in claws meant for digging. Something that hates the corpse-eaters. Something that plants seeds atop the unburied.
Ophiuchus: Something like a tree stump, dragging itself along the ground on strong, gnarled roots. Following large prey until it dies of exhaustion, and replanting itself.
Sagittarius: Something fragile and light. Something that drifts with the wind on gaseous bladders, protected by its own noxious cloud.
Capricorn: Something pale and hungry. Something that feeds off trash and the insects attracted to it. Something far worse than garbage and flies.
Aquarius: Something with scales and a mane of colorful feathers. Something that hunts in packs, sharing moisture from kills.
Pisces: Something colossal. Wings like a thunderstorm and talons like massive fishhooks. Migrating from pole to pole, catching whales for their young.
Saved this larvae from the up coming storm and the cold weather outside. Small guy was crawling on a busy sidewalk and I decided to keep them until I get home and the weather clears up. What kind of larvae is this?
Can’t tell much from the photo but seems like it’d be a caterpillar.
Caterpillars have very specific host plant needs and will often eat only one type of plant. Probably best to put it somewhere sheltered near where you found it, so it can go back to its host plant and eat. If that’s not possible, I’d get close-up pics of it and submit it to some sort of bug ID blog to find out exactly what it is and what it eats, so you know either where to release it or what to feed it.
rodimus: crippling self-esteem issues hidden behind finger guns and some rad shades, financially irresponsible
ultramagnus: fear of the uncertainty of where ur life is going and also Sad bc you tend to think people don’t like u even though they do
drift: u have no idea who u are and that scares you, no one seems to be able to pin down what ur type is but ur definitely Gay
chromedome: ur 24/7 thinking abt Some Shit u did in the past that was either embarrassing or shitty or both, most likely a Sad Gay but a good friend
brainstorm: gay and a disaster – ur most likely touch-starved and excitable
ratchet: are the Parent Friend ™ but probably not by choice – ur very gay but more pragmatic than a chromedome or brainstorm so u don’t mope about ur crushes
swerve: overcompensating for somethin always, constantly gets sorted into hufflepuff, most likely a surprisingly good chef
rung: the Other Parent Friend ™, unlike ratchet doesn’t need coffee every .2 seconds to function, probably really likes plants
rung (version 2): is constantly being kinkshamed
skids: does a lot of things well but can’t figure out what their passion / their calling in life is, feels like they can do a lot of things pretty well but don’t excel anywhere, tends to be impulsive
whirl: never grew out of their punk/scene phase or is reliving it, is doing their best to recover from a lot of bad self-talk, is gay but is ready to fight always
perceptor: was the kind of person who binged the crash course videos in their free time, is gay and pragmatic but unlike ratchet or rung has a hard time identifying/labeling specific emotions
tailgate: a warm Friend, very willing to listen and encourage – another disaster gay, loses track of what they were saying a lot, means well
cyclonus: probably one of the few people not ashamed of their scene phase and feels like they learned a lot abt themselves from it, sword/knife lesbian, incredibly valid, less of a Parent Friend and more of a reliable uncle
firstaid: constantly willing to throw down in the target parking lot over things they like, very loyal friend, parents of friends and s/os like them a lot
rewind: one of those sentimental gays that likes to take pictures of their friends and family, cries about movies, doesn’t look like a top but is probably a top
nautica: enthusiastic science nerd even if they’re bad at math, space gay, probably really likes neon lights, is not involved in the Discourse, ever, a good friend to the Sad Gays
megatron: most likely to be Invalid, poetry gay, unironically likes walt whitman, is probably involved in a lot of the discourse even if they didn’t start it
BettSplendens Tumblr Evac 