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florvinhara · 3 years

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my detectives (part 2)

celebrating the end of this semester w infodump part 2 ft luna! (part 1)

Luna [redacted] Kingston

Romances A or M

Age: 27

Birthday: September 12

Star sign: Virgo

Height: 5'3"

Hair: black, wavy and shoulder length w choppy front bangs

Eyes: dark blue

Other appearance details: eyesight is bad enough that she usually wears glasses but she can still mostly see w/out them. long scar on neck from the murphy attack. old scars on knees and elbows (the Klutz special).

Languages: Conversational fluency in lots of them!

Stats:

Charming/Intimidating

Impulsive/Cautious

Sarcastic/Genuine

Friendly/Stoic

Easygoing/Stubborn

Heart/Mind

Optimist/Pessimist

Team player/Independent

Primary skills: Deduction & people

Strengths: Outgoing, kind, trusting, creative thinker, jack of all trades, open-minded, thoughtful, devoted, loyal, strong-willed

Weaknesses: Guilty, flighty, overactive imagination, clumsy, low self-esteem, unfocused, nervous, dishonest, impetuous, irrational at times

Personal:

her middle name is currently [redacted] bc im pretty sure rook's sister is Evil and for the Drama im gonna make luna's middle name the aunt's first name ;) if it turns out the aunt isnt a villain then.... idk maybe she still will be in my heart <3

she's worn glasses since she was 12, but her vision is. Technically good enough that she can mostly get by without them, leading to her always putting them on top of her head and subsequently losing them

in my heart she's an investigative journalist who moved back to wayhaven after sm things went down at her old job that made her want to find out what really happened to rook and reconnect w rebecca, but then got caught up in the murder plot with UB starting book 1, but in the vein of canon, she joined the force to follow in rook's footsteps etc.

she was kind of a weird kid, always daydreaming and making up her own very in-depth games and stories in the corner- she was pretty shy! sometimes she wld write them down and that's what first got her interested in writing

the car is named Tracy and she is a LADY who is doing her best!!!! at this point tracy is a cherished friend, jokes about her being bad will Not be well received >:(

she's very much in her head all the time, smtimes her sentences sort of meander and just go off on tangents and then kind of drift off at the ends

rebecca sent her to boarding school for a while following an Event in luna's childhood that made rebecca feel like wayhaven wasn't safe for the time being, she had lots of fun but that's kind of the time when luna started to worry she'd done smth wrong and that's why rebecca didn't want her around, since she'd kind of blocked out the Incident

many nervous habits! including but not limited to: cleaning her glasses, braiding small strands of her hair, jostling her leg, cracking her knuckles

she is actually v smart! in a book sense at least :0 she's clever and good at solving puzzles, and she remembers a lot of rlly obscure info abt lots of things- look into her eyes and you can basically hear the mii music playing, but she is intelligent!

she loves animals :') walking anywhere with her takes Ages bc she wants to stop and look at birds and if there's a worm on the sidewalk everything comes to a Halt while a rescue operation is performed

rocks!!!!! she's a huge geology nerd and she Loves them sm, fun crystals and pebbles alike :) she collects them all and if you picked one up and asked her abt it she wld know exactly when and where she got it

she hates seasonal music!!!! halloween songs and Especially christmas songs!! she cant explain why but it drives her up. the. wall. during the last few months of the year she's like that gif from community of the woman hitting the guy with a candy cane like "its December 10th!!!" its the one thing about the holidays she doesn't like

lots of her favorite books are from the golden age of detective fiction! she also reads a lot of poetry and history books, and loves nonfiction :D she's a sucker for any book with really in depth worldbuilding and/or a map on the front inside cover- she DID read the entire silmarillion AND enjoy it! she loves animated and stop-motion movies, laika is her Favorite studio and she owns every studio ghibli movie

she loves any food or drink where the main ingredient is sugar <3 catch her eating lucky charms dry straight from the box! she'll only drink coffee if it has like. vanilla or sm other sweet flavoring added to it along with 12 packs of sugar

her sleep schedule.... oh no! she had insomnia even before murphy, and now with the nightmares, it's even worse :( it's ok though! she uses the nighttime to work on art or baking or writing etc.

she listens to lots of indie/folk music- the oh hellos are one of her favorite bands! also she's a big fan of fun pop music- carly rae jepsen, bleachers, hayley kiyoko, HAIM, etc. also smdfnsj she Does listen to lofi music

she's loved chess since she was a kid and often plays against herself or another opponent- she also usually has a puzzle she's working on, and really likes crossword puzzles/sudoku games!

background noise is a Friend <3 it rlly helps her focus!

she loves her potted plants a lot! she has very detailed instructions on how to take care of them and she does talk/sing to them to help them grow

her house Looks minimalist? she values the aesthetic but she cannot commit- open any drawer in her house and you'll find like 7000 receipts she hasn't thrown out yet

she is Sweet but! untapped Rage is there... she has a tendency to bottle things up until one tiny thing makes her Go Off with all the stress and anger she's been holding back :( she Will cry and yell and then be completely horrified and spend the next 3-4 weeks apologizing profusely

she feels bad about. Everything :( she blames herself a lot,, it's easier to tell herself that things are going wrong bc it's her Fault and she did smth wrong rather than accept that it's out of her control

on that subject things with rebecca are Awkward!! they kind of drifted apart and luna feels like she shld have tried harder to keep in touch

her primary love language... probably words of affirmation or physical affection! she's very open w her affections and telling/showing people she loves them (to the extent they're comfortable with it! she prefers to let whoever she's with dictate the pace of the relationship)

if you see her Sleeping on the floor.... just leave her be,, she's sleepy

she is. weirdly lucky at small things and games of chance? catch her being dealt a full house right out of the gate during card games or finding quarters on the street all the time! she wins carnival games like nobody's business <3

absently she knows all the Lucky things to wish on! shooting stars, ladybugs, eyelashes, pennies, 11:11, etc :)

she dresses like. a very specific kind of influencer lowkey, w the oversized t-shirts and jeans ksdfm, the Sweaters/coats, etc.

hot weather does Not spark joy- she owns like 700 fans and loves getting to wear all her cute winter clothes :)

she's not allowed to watch cooking/baking shows unsupervised anymore, following the Incident where she watched one and then spent the entire night building a Giant gingerbread mansion spreading across the floor of her apartment

she deflects. a Lot! not even intentionally really but it just Happens :/ she's naturally a pretty open person but smtimes she just naturally is Not Talking abt it and tries to play things off, especially personal things abt her feelings/reactions to things <3

she is Nervous,, her base level of stress is. kind of up there! surprises Do Not work bc she will just Shriek and drop what she's holding sndfsjn.... it was like that even before murphy but. you know. it's more pronounced now :/

in her heart she is like. a human golden retriever! she's excited!! she wants to be friends!! she's roaming around,, take her for a walk and maybe she will find a cool stick to carry!!

she walks with a little bit of a skip in her step! on her toes a bit so nobody can tell she is Short... (it doesnt work)

#clown girl has entered the arena #my softest oc BY far jsvskssb she is wholesome but also <3 a lil bit of a fool #twc

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cumulativechaos · 4 years

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The Lanternfly Effect

Martin’s lost his mind.

In his ten years working at the Magnus Institute, Martin’s encountered many unexplainable things. Books that cause horrible things to happen to the people who read them. Artifacts that cause horrible things to happen to the people who touch them. A woman whose body consists almost entirely of worms. Said woman lurking outside his flat for two weeks. He’s seen things that defied nature, logic, and reason. He’s seen nightmare fuel horrible enough to cause him lasting psychological trauma.

None of these things have made Martin question his sanity.

Until now.

Jonathan Sims, Head Archivist at the Magnus Institute, swearing. The stream of profanities flying loudly from his mouth is colorful enough to send Martin’s mother to an early grave. And it’s not just the swearing; Jon is also running around like a madman, head turned towards the ground and feet stomping erratically. He seems to be completely oblivious of the world around him, even when that world stares at him in confusion on their way into the Institute. He’s in the middle of the sidewalk, for heaven’s sake, and he’s cursing like a sailor and running in circles.

“Piece of shit bug,” Jon hisses, voice dripping with malice. “Goddamn fucking shithead worm I’ll fucking kill you you son of a bitch–”

Finally, it gets to be too much for Martin. He has to interact with this strange apparition. He clears his throat, loudly, but Jon pays him no mind.

“Jon,” Martin says. When Jon still doesn’t look up, Martin tries again. “Jon!”

Jon glances up for a moment. “Ah, hello, Martin,” he says, as if it’s a normal morning and what little remains of Martin’s life isn’t falling apart before him. Then Jon goes right back to stomping on the ground and swearing.

“Jon,” Martin tries again. This time, when Jon looks up, Martin doesn’t give him time to say anything. “I think the worm is dead.”

Jon looks down at his feet, where a silvery stain is slowly spreading across the sidewalk. “You can never be too sure,” Jon says. He doesn’t sound even remotely embarrassed.

“Right,” Martin says. “Well, you’ve been stomping on it for a few minutes now, I think you can leave it alone.”

“Hm,” is all Jon says. He stares at the stain for a few moments more, as if daring the worm to reconstruct itself, then nods and heads into the building.

Martin lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding. He glances down at the worm stain. Part of him, the part that lets spiders loose outside instead of killing them, feels bad for the worm. The memory of those two weeks trapped in his flat reconsiders that pity.

---

The next time it happens, Martin isn’t there. He sees it, though, on the small screen of Tim’s cell phone. The camera is shaky with Tim’s laughter.

“Fuck! Off! You stupid! Shitty! Bug!”

“This is the greatest thing I’ve ever seen,” Sasha says, peering over Tim’s shoulder.

“Right?” Tim says. “He goes on for ten minutes.”

“Guys, come on, we should get back to work,” Martin says, but he’s still peering, wide-eyed, over Tim’s other shoulder. He makes no move to follow his own suggestion. There’s something captivating about watching Jon go apeshit on a couple of tiny, seemingly harmless worms. (Martin knows they’re not harmless, though. Doesn’t stop the video from being utterly hilarious and completely earth-shattering.)

“What are you watching?” says a familiar stern voice, and Martin yelps, leaping away from Tim’s desk with a red face. Sasha hops away as well, but with far less panic then Martin. Tim, on the other hand, swipes a few times on his camera roll and turns to face Jon with an easy grin.

“A video of my mum’s cat,” Tim says. “Do you want to see?”

It’s so brief Martin almost misses it, but for a moment he could swear Jon considers it. “Later, perhaps,” he says. “Get back to work, everyone.”

---

The third time it happens, Martin is there. In fact, Martin is the catalyst.

It’s the early morning, far too early for people to be arriving at the Institute, and Martin is taking a walk. It’s rare he gets to see the outside world, these days. The inside of the Archive is all he ever looks at. It’s a risk, stepping out, but one Martin is willing to make for the sake of what little remains of his own sanity.

It’s on his return back that he’s attacked.

Later, when he breathlessly tells the story to Tim and Sasha, there will be dozens of worms. Dozens of worms, and all of them were suddenly surrounding him, cornering him. In his retelling, they all pounce at once, only to be effortlessly brushed away by his savior, Jonathan Sims.

The truth is that it’s one worm. It does jump at him, though, scaring the living daylights out of him and causing him to shriek loudly, alerting a certain workaholic archivist who is coming in to work at an ungodly hour of the morning. Said workaholic archivist does come running to Martin’s rescue. And said workaholic does deal with the worm in the way Martin is becoming familiar with.

“Die you fucking asshole!” Jon exclaims, stomping firmly on the worm. Its silvery guts gush across the pavement, and Jon stomps on those bits, too. “Threatening my assistants? I’ll fucking eviscerate you and burn you to ash! Tell Jane Prentiss to meet me behind the Institute for a one on one deathmatch, I’ll fucking murder her!”

So, like, the same kind of stuff, really.

Martin can’t get over the bit about “threatening my assistants,” though. Before, he thought Jon’s colorful language was simply due to his unending hatred for the silvery creatures, but it seems as though some of it has to do with protectiveness.

“Martin,” Jon says, snapping Martin out of his thoughts. “Martin, are you alright? Were there any others? Did it get you?”

“I-no, no, I’m fine,” Martin says. “It was just the one, and, er…” Martin glances at the smear on the ground. “I think you took care of it.”

Jon breathes a sigh of relief. “Thank goodness,” he says. “I don’t know what I would have done if–”

Jon cuts off, ears turning red. He clears this throat and turns away. “Anyway,” he says. “Shall we head inside?”

Martin can’t help the giddy smile that spreads across his face. “Lead the way, Jon.”

#tma #the magnus archives #magpod #jonathan sims #martin blackwood #this is stupid but please enjoy #inspired by my reaction to seeing a spotted lanternfly #theyre an invasive species where i live and i see one i go apeshit #mine #mw

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theramseyloft · 7 years

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Why rescued pigeons and doves should not be released into the wild. And why baby pigeons in rehab need to be cuddled.

Edited to be more accurate and less confusing

Why should rescued pigeons and doves not be released back into the wild? And why do they need to be handled in the rescues and humans should imprint on them unlike other birds? I'm writing a paper on rescued pigeons and doves if you're wondering XD

ramseyringnecks answered: First and foremost because they are not wild animals.

They are the children of lost and abandoned domestic pets. Mostly performance breeds like homers, rollers, tumblers, tipplers and sky cutters, with the occasional escaped or abandoned fancy mixed in.

What would your reaction be to a person taking a young dog they found in an alley or parking lot, worming it, bringing it back from emaciation or disease, maybe treating a broken bone or car injury, and then taking it right back and releasing it into the wild once they got it healthy?

Would you object?

Why?

Really. List all the reasons. Because I guarantee that all of them except rabies apply to pigeons.

Never seen a healthy stray dog? I can guarantee you that you’ve never seen a healthy stray pigeon either. The streaked white poo you always see on buildings or sidewalks under pigeon roosts? Its an indicator of starvation. Healthy poo is brown, round, and solid with a small white urate. White poo is pure uric acid, with little to no food matter, whick is why it does the structural damage it does.

The cute poofball pose? They are cold, and most are hunched up in the universal posture of “I don’t feel so good…” Being malnourished and usually heavily parisitized makes it hard to keep enough muscle mass to thermoregulate.

On mobile, I can’t see the question anymore once I start to answer it, so if I missed anything, I’ll reblog with more detail.

Ok. Looks like I have missed a few things.

Rescues and imprinting.

So, alluding to dogs again because pigeons have been domesticated AT LEAST as long and as completely as Dogs.

Imagine if, after all of the time Humanity has spent with Dogs, training them to work with us as partners, companions, therapy, and service animals; Society suddenly fell out of love with dogs and abandoned them completely, except for races and shows, where any non feral puppies born that could not be expected to win or produce winners were immediately killed.

That is exactly what happened to pigeons.

50 years ago.

Really. Just fifty years.

And dogs, who are still VERY much societally beloved as companions and in rolls of service, need rescues.

Because people refuse to spay and neuter their house pets, and more puppies are born than there are homes for, there is a stray population of unwanted dogs that breed uncontrolled.

And the reason feral dogs don't have NEARLY the population of feral pigeons? SO many people respond SO fast to the sight of a lost, sick puppy or dog!

It's just an automatic knee-jerk reaction for most people to at least network on behalf of a stray dog to get it somewhere safe and either reunite it with its owner, or find it a permanent home.

After all, we KNOW dogs are pets! If a dog is wandering unattended, something must be wrong, and it is automatically assumed to need help, no matter how healthy it looks at first glance.

Now, imagine if NO one EVER did that for ANY stray dog, over a period of 50 years, and now you know why there is such an overwhelming number of feral pigeons.

You may find the occasional purebred in a shelter, but I can pretty much guarantee that was a pet 9 times out of 10, whose owner either died or suffered some misfortune and had no other option. (Mill busts aside.)

Like I said in a previous ask, when animals are bred on purpose, there has to *be* a purpose. There must be a goal AND a plan for EVERY single litter.

If you boil it down, THAT is what separates an Ethical breeder from a Mill.

Ethical breeders have a SPECIFIC goal for a litter and have preparations set up for the rest of the pups. Space to house them long term, resources set aside for food and medical care, time set aside to train and socialize them, and a fee and screening process set up to make the best possible match between a pup and a family, and a return policy in case things don't work out, in order to ensure that there is the least possible likelihood of any of those puppies winding up abandoned.

Pigeons, because of the smear campaign against them 50 years ago (http://www.audubon.org/…/the-origins-our-misguided-hatred-p…) no longer have the overwhelming public support with which Dogs are almost universally blessed.

Pigeons are either purebred show birds, purebred performers, or feral.

There are SO few pigeons blessed to be house companions.

Humanity has largely forgotten that they ARE domesticated.

There are SO few places even willing to look at them.

Wildlife rehabs are up to their eyes in DOMESTICATED birds that really should be in pet shelters. If pigeons were not constantly mistaken for wild animals, imagine how much funding and resources could be freed up for genuinely native wildlife!

While ADULT feral pigeons can survive release back “into the wild”, babies ALL almost immediately die upon release.

Pigeons are very human like in just HOW socially complex they are. Babies have to be TAUGHT how to pigeon!

Not just where and how to forage, but how to respect the spaces of older flock mates so that they can make and defend their own space with in the flock.

With out that knowledge, which humans are just not equipped to teach, baby pigeons will never be accepted into a flock.

Pigeon flocks are extended families. Strangers are competitors for limited resources and can only join a flock by marrying in.

Alone, they can’t survive. Feral flocks depend on cooperation to eat, drink, gather nest materials, and avoid predation. With no one to watch their back, a single pidge is under constant stress trying to feed itself and keep watch for predators at the same time. It steadily weakens, and dies of disease if it manages not to get eaten first.

Because of this, I make absolutely NO attempt to release any baby pigeons I get through wildlife rehab.

It would literally be dumping a stray puppy back into the alley or on the road side.

They ARE domestic pets. It is a fact.

And they deserve to be treated like it.

So the few shelters there are that accept them make it their life's mission to remind humanity that PIGEONS ARE ABANDONED SKY PUPPIES!

OF COURSE THEY CAN BE GREAT COMPANIONS!

THAT IS WHAT THEY HAVE *ALWAYS* BEEN!

Now, let’s touch on imprinting.

The difference between pigeons and exotic birds isn’t that it’s ok to imprint pigeons, but not exotics.

It’s that pigeons do not NEED to be imprinted in order to be safely tractable.

Parrots are not domesticated. The tame ones are imprinted. They *have* to think of humans as parents and potential mates, or they will see us as predators and can inflict potentially crippling injuries in self defense.

Pigeons are genuinely domesticated, and have been since the dawn of written history. They are *hatched* already tame and do not have to be stolen and bottle fed to be safe to handle or capable of bonding as a companion to a person. Like puppies, pigeon babies only need to be socialized as they grow up in order to bond easily to people.

Oh!

Sorry.

I missed what you were actually asking in regards to imprinting!

You asked why baby pigeons in shelters NEED to be handled!

It's because pigeons are intensely social. Babies and hens are VERY touch oriented, to the extent that they suffer touch starvation the way human toddlers do.

Baby Pigeons grow up in a cuddle puddle, constantly snuggled and verbally soothed by both parents until they wean.

They usually don't even leave the flock after weaning. They become part of it, like a village made up of a huge, extended family; Nesting next door to or across the way from their parents and siblings, rather than going off on their own to claim an entirely separate territory.

Mater of fact, young birds ONLY have to leave and start a new flock when the one they hatched in grows too large for local resources to support.

Wild animals in rehab need to be handled as little as possible to avoid imprinting, so that they are not hindered in their survival upon release.

Pigeons are NOT wild animals. They are not even native to anywhere but Turkey and neighboring parts of the middle east. They are domesticated pets. Imprinting avoidance should not apply to them.

#long post #pigeon history #stray dogs #stray pigeons #stray rescue culture #feral dogs #feral pigeons #animal rescue #animal husbandry #breeder ethics #rescue ethics #wildlife rehab

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