Telepathic Orbit

So I’ve been here doing wtnv rp since about 2012, which is a long time! And it’s always been nothing but fun! But over the last year or two, activity’s been drying up. Almost no one remains of the once-large community I spent so many years writing with, and while I see there are many new people joining us, I’ve been repeatedly running into the problem of plotting with new people and starting threads only to be left hanging for months at a time. 

Secondly, I have over 40 active threads across all my blogs. There is no possible way for me to keep track of them all on my own, so this is what’s happening: any thread that hasn’t moved in a year or more will be archived and dropped at the end of this week. 

telepathicorbit​:

“Just one,” Kinsey said, laughing along with her. “Don’t overthink it.”

Penny felt her face flushing—was she that easy to read? “I’ll…try,” she promised.

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“See you then,” Kinsey confirmed. “And be sure you wear sensible shoes and a skirt you can move in. Swing isn’t shy.”

“I-I will, thanks,” Penny said, knowing full well she was going to go home and immediately do way too much research on swing dancing to prepare for Wednesday. “Any other tips?” she asked with a nervous laugh.

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“You should be!” Kinsey said with a small laugh. “You’re going to have a great time.”

Penny wasn’t quite as convinced as Kinsey, but she was excited to see her again, and try something new. “Yeah, I—I’ll see you then?”

telepathicorbit​:

It took only a couple of minutes to square away business, and then Kinsey grabbed a bit of scratch paper from under the register. “I typically go dancing Wednesday nights,” she said, quickly jotting down the time and place of the next dance. “It’s a bit out of the way. I’d offer a ride, but the car went with my husband.”

Penny winced sympathetically. “That’s okay—I take the bus everywhere anyway.”

She couldn’t help a small, shy smile as she looked down at the paper in her hand. “Um, I’m…excited,” she admitted, peeking back up at Kinsey.

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“Yeah?” Kinsey grinned as she made her way back up to the counter. “Why don’t we get your payment sorted, and then we can talk about the where and when?”

“Yeah,” Penny managed, following after Kinsey as she stuck the last pin in her hijab. Despite her nerves she couldn’t help a small, excited smile at the idea of going out dancing with Kinsey. “That’s—that sounds good.”

telepathicorbit‌:

“I am sure that I would love to teach you how to swing,” Kinsey assured her. “But if you really don’t want to go, I won’t force you.”

Penny finally began the process of wrapping her hair back up, and the comfort of it helped her calm down and actually think.

“No, I–that actually sounds kind of fun,” she admitted sheepishly. 

telepathicorbit‌:

“I’m a swing dancer, not a swinger,” Kinsey said, laughing. She shook out the cape and folded it up to put it away. “It’s all very chaste, I promise.” 

“Oh…” Penny breathed, relieved. But as all of her anxiety rushed out of her, embarrassment took its place, and she could feel her face burning with it. She tried to come up with something, anything to try to make this whole thing less awkward somehow, but all that came out was, “Well, I…are you sure you–I, um…gosh…” 

telepathicorbit‌:

“All the more reason to come!” Kinsey went around behind Penny to free her from the hair-covered plastic cape. “Do you know how to swing, or do I get to teach you?”

Before she could stop herself, Penny’s wide eyes met Kinsey’s in the mirror. “What? I–swing? Like… Y-you mean like…where couples go, a-and…” She was too mortified to even finish the question, her face burning bright. 

With the cape off, Penny quickly went about putting her hair back up, to try to settle some of her discomfort and give herself something else to focus on. 

telepathicorbit‌:

“You could come with me,” Kinsey suggested with a warm smile. “My usual group’s out at the abandoned missile silo tonight, it’s always a great time.”

Penny’s eyes widened in the mirror. “O-oh! Oh, gosh, I–well I don’t, um, that’s really nice of you, I’m just…” Penny bit her lip and glanced away so she couldn’t see herself or Kinsey’s reflections. “Well I don’t go out much anymore…” she mumbled sheepishly, trying to decide if it was worth giving her the whole explanation.

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“It will be,” Kinsey agreed distractedly as she finished up with Penny’s bangs. After a moment, she stepped away and set down her scissors for Penny to take a look in the mirror. “I’d much rather go out dancing,” she lilted, watching Penny’s face carefully. “But I’d need someone to dance with.”

Penny stared at her reflection in the mirror, surprised that she was actually able to see again without her bangs hanging in her eyes anymore. The other big surprise was how much she didn’t hate the way it looked: yes it was different, but still her, at least enough that her hands didn’t itch to play with her hair until it looked right again.

She was so distracted by the new look that she forgot to over-analyze the words coming out of her mouth before she said them, so to keep the conversation going she found herself admitting, “Gosh, I haven’t been dancing in a long time…”

you’re wandering across the plains of Mongolia, wondering where the fuck you left your horse. suddenly, the ground shakes! like the beginning of the stampede scene in the Lion King. you hear a distant thunder, as if caused by many hooves! like the stampede scene in the Lion King. you shift anxiously as the noise grows louder, wishing you’d paid more attention to the Disney classics.

suddenly the herd comes over the rise, and you laugh so hard you fall over and are immediately and tragically trampled to death.

surprise! it’s the-

and it’s rude to laugh. (but boy, is it hard not to.)

the Saiga (sigh-guh) is a goat-sized antelope native to the Eurasian steppe. they’re found from the Carpathian Mountains to Mongolia. and they uh, have a bit of a nose situation going on. 

and that’s the understatement of the century! the Saiga’s mighty schnozz is its defining feature, and no other hooved animal on earth has such a robust snoot. the Saiga pities their pathetic little faces for it.

that’s a lot of nose to look down. geeze.

so why this immense not-quite-trunk? maybe they use it to make noise, or to intimidate rivals? not so much, actually. both males and females have the tremendous facetrumpet, though females do lack horns and a desire to kill. (but more on that later.)

obviously this big ol clown honker must have some purpose, or it wouldn’t exist. or maybe God was just bored, who nose. (har!) but I kid, this punderful snout actually does have a purpose!

and that purpose is to look ABSOLUTELY STUNNING.

as I mentioned, Saigas are herd animals. and at some point, Evolution decided to provide them with a semi-helpful wedgie. that monster snout helps to filter dust kicked up by their 50ish neighbors out of the air they breathe, as they stumpf semi-majestically across the plains.

it also helps to warm the air they breathe in the cold months, which is an adaptation anyone who’s ever stepped out of their front door directly into a -10 hellzone is surely jealous of. (god, you don’t even know.)

I’m not bitter! I’M NOT.

and they migrate really far! herds of these ridiculous little antelopes can cross thousands of miles, and travel up to 72 miles in a single day! they ford rivers, brave valleys, and scuttle inspiringly across the tundra like they think they’re in a Lifetime movie.

their goal is to reach their seasonal feeding grounds; they spend the winters in the south and the summers in the north. like retirees, except without the tacky golf pants.

BRENDA, HAVE YOU SEEN MY SHORTS.

Saigas eat a wide variety of plants, including some that are toxic to other animals. like goats, Saigas put all of their skill points into the ‘eat anything’ slot. and it seems to have paid off; they were once found across all of Europe and Asia, and even in paleolithic North America! (though the end of the last ice age put a brutal stop to that.)

just imagine being a prehistoric hunter-gatherer and looking out your tent one day to see a moving sea of these ridiculous little muppet antelopes. I bet it was a fun time.

GROK, YOU’LL NEVER GUESS WHAT I’M LOOKING AT RIGHT NOW.

but I did promise I’d get back to the heart-full-of-murder thing, so I guess I’d better do that. Saiga are a lot like other ungulates in that their herds are mostly made up of females, with one attendant male who just kind of hangs out and get poached for his horns sometimes. at least, until breeding season. (DUN DUN DUUUN)

males spend the entire breeding season fighting each other for access to the ladies, which isn’t unusual for a hooved mammal! but what IS unusual is the fatality rate- 90% of these fights end with one male just fucking killing the other. I guess the Saiga ladies are just really into blood sport. 

maybe we can get them to just watch Game of Thrones instead like normal people.

but their conservation status is another story altogether. (it’s depressing how many species this is true for. welcome to the Anthropocene, I guess. the geological era where everything sucks.)

around two decades ago, more than a million Saiga wandered across the Eurasian Steppe. but unregulated hunting for food, trophies and the Saiga’s ‘medicinal’ horns decreased their numbers to less than 50,000 in just 10 years. and if that weren’t enough, bacterial infections have been taking huge chunks out of the remaining population: a mass die-off in 2015 killed half of them. 

but there is good news: these goofy little hooved bastards are now enjoying governmental protection and conservation efforts to raise their numbers. there are still around 50,000 of them and with luck and maybe a little less murder, these goatish nostril maniacs will be thundering across the plains once more. 

(lord willing.)

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IMAGE SOURCES

@why-animals-do-the-thing

I reached out to someone who works at the zoo, and it turns out that this is a UVB heat lamp for the radiated tortoises that share the exhibit. Apparently the lemurs really love it - to the point you’ll sometimes see them sitting next to or on top of the tortoises when the latter is basking.

telepathicorbit‌:

Kinsey was busy making all manner of plans, but they weren’t anything she could share with Penny, so she smiled and said, “Oh, you know, just getting back to my wig. It’s really coming along. And later I’ll head home, read some epic fantasy to Lucinda, and enjoy a nice evening in, I suppose.”

“That’s, um… That sounds really nice,” Penny commented sheepishly. Her nervousness over what Kinsey was doing to her bangs made it much more difficult to keep the conversation going, or keep her expression totally neutral.