Mystic 1

Human: We just train new people how to do it?

Elf: *gears visibly turning in their head*

Human: Are you alright?

Elf: I just realized that we didn’t have to let that whole city fall to ruin just because my grandfather died.

Human: My cousin made it.

Elf: Impossible! Those metalworking techniques were lost a hundred years ago!

Human: What do you mean lost? My great-grandmother learned to make these swords from an elven smith, then taught it to her kids.

Elf: That's ridiculous. No elf would give such secrets to a human.

Human: They didn't. Meemaw delivered the metal to the forge, and no one kicked her out when she stayed and watched. She always said they barely acknowledged her even when doing business with her, like she wasn't worth noticing.

Elf: Come to think of it, my great-uncle always was rather single-minded when he started working.

Human: So he wasn't ignoring her, he just forgot she was there?

Obviously, the goal of this experiment is to grow the lobsters until they’re big enough to settle to the seabed and then release them, because they have a much higher likelihood of surviving to adulthood when they’re able to hide. Ideally, captive lobster hatcheries can boost the wild population and keep things stable, so we don’t have a major crash in a decade or two.

The first year we tried this was pretty bad. We had a lot of eggs, but very few babies. It turned out that the CO2 levels in the building spiked as more guests visited throughout the summer, and that settled into the water and threw off the pH and caused a chemical reaction that prevented a lot of the eggs from hatching. I think we ended up releasing three baby lobsters (which is still better than their wild survival rate but not great).

The second year was a little better. We added a de-gasser to the aquarium and got a ton of larval lobsters, but right as they were settling to the bottom we had a disease outbreak that killed most of them. We ended up releasing four babies at the end of the season.

But this year? Oh boy. We have so many lobsters that we had to release the first round early (usually we wait till September or October so guests can see them). We just released a total of FIVE HUNDRED AND TWENTY FIVE baby lobsters, and we still have over a hundred who haven’t settled to the bottom yet. I genuinely don’t even have words to explain how cool this is. OVER FIVE HUNDRED. We just added hundreds of lobsters to the wild population that wouldn’t have been there otherwise.

Because Donald Trump and his Republican allies cut funding to disease prevention and control.

Why is measles back in America?

Because Donald Trump and his Republican allies, including RFK Jr, cut vaccine and measles prevention funding and programs.

Why is the New World Screwworm infecting cattle in Texas, when it had previously been eliminated from the area?

Because Donald Trump and his Republican allies, including Elon Musk, cut USAID funding, which in part worked to monitor and prevent screwworm outbreaks.

Why was there a flu outbreak in our armed forces?

Because Donald Trump and his Republican allies, including Pete Hegseth, cut vaccination requirements for our armed forces, putting all of them at risk alongside our military readiness.

What contributed to the Covid outbreak?

Donald Trump and his Republican allies cut funding to a pandemic prevention program in his first term because Barack Obama had created it.

NGC 7023: The Iris Nebula

As a gay woman with Tourette syndrome who is presently very sweaty and dealing with it like a champion, I know my gothic literature girlies will take 12 seconds to like this post and tell highly successful ceramicist Lauren Lewis that her fantasy mugs aren't stupid!!!! 🥹🥹

(jokes aside, ye gods this mug is gorgeous. AI could never. I cannot be held responsible for my actions if she has a Halloween drop this year, though I don't think I'm going to become a collector or anything given the price point)

IC 342: The Hidden Galaxy

Hydrogen Clouds of M33

House of Worth Gown

c. 1880

silk, metal, glass

Been working on these for a few weeks now, and they're finally done!

I really missed having the Script Book to refer to, especially when writing fic, so I made the next best thing, which is some transcripts (+minor descriptions)

PDFs:

EPISODE ONE

EPISODE TWO

EPISODE THREE

EPISODE FOUR

EPISODE FIVE

EPISODE SIX

UPDATE: Google docs links below:

Episode One

Episode Two

Episode Three

Episode Four

Episode Five

Guess what's finally back! That's right, free evac cards. I have put them up on my Payhip as a pay-what-you-want product, including free. This will make it much easier for me to manage orders and anyone who wants to make donations to support the creation of these cards. Right now I have about 300 in stock, so lots to go around.

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Evacuations are stressful and frequently sudden. In such situations it is easy to forget things, no matter how much you may have prepared beforehand. These cards are designed to live in your wallet and function as a quick reference guide and list of items to remember during an evacuation based on how much time you have.

I provide these cards for free as often as I can, so if you want to get them for free, you can do that! You get to pick the price, and $0 is a 100% acceptable answer. However, if you do chose to pay even $1, that money will go towards producing more free cards for others, envelopes, and stamps.

To make sure these cards are available to as many people as possible, please try to limit your order to ten cards at a time. If you would like to discuss a larger order for yourself, your business, your non-profit, your emergency department, or anything else, shoot me an email at [email protected] and we can discuss options!

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NGC 2440: Cocoon of a New White Dwarf

Schoolhouse Rock, "No More Kings" (1975)