this bird has flown

It’s more likely than you think

so y’all might’ve noticed I haven’t posted anything in over a year

I was just... tired. disappointed. fandom being what it was, Uprising being what it was, the colossal nightmarish overhang of the clusterfuck the MCU became being everywhere, I just didn’t wanna... anymore

Burnout happens

I’m okay, I’m alive, for the moment I seem to be healthy, and for the first time in my life I’m fiscally stable without having to half-kill myself from overwork to manage it, which is pretty all right

From the wiki (with my imperfect translation):

Exposés aux mêmes dangers et risques que les hommes, certains ont été décorés comme des soldats. Ce fut le cas du célèbre « Vaillant » (matricule 787.15), dernier pigeon du fort de Vaux, lâché le 4 juin 1916 à 11 h 30 pour apporter à Verdun un ultime message du commandant Raynal. Il eut le privilège d'être cité à l'ordre de la Nation — un fac-similé de cette distinction est conservé au colombier militaire du Mont-Valérien — pour avoir transporté au travers des fumées toxiques et des tirs ennemis le message suivant :

Exposed to the same dangers and risks as the men, some [pigeons] were honored as soldiers. Such was the case of the famous “Vaillant” (number 787.15), the last pigeon of Fort de Vaux, released on June 4th, 1916 at 11:30 am, to carry a final message from Commander Raynal to Verdun. He was awarded a Citation to the Order of the Nation — a copy of which is kept at the military dovecote of Mont-Valérien — for having flown the following message through toxic fumes and enemy barrage:

« Nous tenons toujours, mais nous subissons une attaque par les gaz et les fumées très dangereuses. Il y a urgence à nous dégager. Faites-nous donner de suite toute communication optique par Souville, qui ne répond pas à nos appels. C'est mon dernier pigeon. Signé : Raynal. »

We’re still here, but we’re being attacked by very dangerous gases and fumes. It is urgent to clear us. Send any optical communication through Souville, they aren’t responding to our calls. This is my last pigeon. Signed: Raynal.”

Gravement intoxiqué par les gaz de combat, le pigeon arriva au colombier de la citadelle de Verdun et mourut en ayant délivré son message. Sa dépouille est conservée au musée colombophile militaire.

Seriously poisoned by the combat gases, the pigeon arrived at the Verdun citadel dovecote and died shortly after delivering his message. His remains are now kept in the military pigeon museum at Mont-Valérien.

If you love yourself, don’t ever look through your blocked text messages, because you blocked those numbers for a reason, there was a SUPER GOOD REASON, so if you don’t look through ‘em, you’ll never have to see a text from your former boss (the one who threatened to kill you, that one) that goes:

‘after every thing Ive done for you, you wont help me with just a few little things now??’

We make hundreds of different kinds of dogs, we cultivate different instincts to make dogs that want to run, that want to herd, that want to hunt, that want to go into the kitchen and bring you a potato when you ask them to bring your medication, but they all look at our faces when they look at us.

So we have these soft friends, and they play, they’re social (except for when we fuck them up, that happens a lot but that’s on us), they get attached to us and wag their entire bodies with complete doggy joy when we get home from the grocery store, so of course we love them.

We love them so much, we want to do right by this species we made, so we take our learning and our science and we figure out how to do a better job of taking care of them. We create vaccination schedules, we take them to the doctor more frequently than we go ourselves, we get really intense about The Proper Diet, we care so much.

And then it shocks the shit out of us when they get old, when they get sick, when something happens that can’t be prevented and can’t be predicted, when the vet says I am so sorry to tell you this, when we expect a certain amount of time and it gets taken away.

In forty thousand years we haven’t fixed this, we accepted the trade of unconditional adoring companionship in mere decade long increments (maybe two if we’re extremely lucky), we know going into the gig that it will end in extraordinary heartbreak, and we do this to ourselves anyway, over and over.

AGAIN

I was tagged by @hauntedfalcon to post the most recent line I’ve written in any of my WIPs

"I know," she says. "Why don't you leave all this to the professionals and come downstairs with me, hmm?"