Innyatima's lair

what this was supposed to communicate to me was “saint valentine would marry young men to their girlfriends in secret as a priest at his own risk and thats why we celebrate valentines day” 

what i got out of it was “saint valentine married a shitton of dudes so he could protect his army of husbands from having to go to war and it was beautiful and love can halt war in its tracks and thats why we celebrate valentines day”

and thats why the assumption that a child would automatically get a hetero interpretation of the story and the innate unclarity of the english language made me think that valentines day was about mass gay poly marriage until i was like fourteen and recited the story to a friend who stared at me like id grown three extra heads

That leaves two more, and I'm torn between:

Green iguana: Our other Junior Herpers leader always brings an iguana her to events, and kids love them. They're highly recognizable, too.

Corn snake: Extremely popular pet around here, another child/crowd favorite.

Hellbender: Not native to Chicago, but a popular conservation project, native to IL, and charismatic AF (if you like snot-covered muppets, WHICH I DO).

Cricket frog: I have 2 inch sticker blanks, so I could do this life-sized like I'm doing with the baby massasauga. The nature museum we have junior meetings at does a survey of these every year, so they're really relevant.

Bearded dragon: Everybody loves these.

Axolotl: Everybody loves these and for some reason they are EXTREMELY popular with little girls right now. Herps are for everybody but I always want to encourage a little girl's love of slimy things, y'know?

Alligator: Chance the Snapper is still relevant around here.

Fox snake: Unlike corns, actually local. People have become very, very interested in our native ratsnakes recently (I have actually been asked how to attract them!) and fox snakes are pretty- and a lot of our membership lives in the Fox River valley so there's that.

Western hognose: Native to IL, threatened in IL, and they're very cute and dramatic.

Sulcata tortoise: Somebody always brings a sulcata to our meetings. I think I'd do this one with some shading and cracks like it's crashing through the sticker.

the way fandoms are desperate to make all aroace characters romance and sex favorable but then dont do anything remotely similar to any other identity is astounding. hmm i wonder why

Historically it was made from murex snails and was hugely expensive and used by royalty, but chemically it’s similar to indigo so the class was able to create it in the lab without snails.