It's interesting that we still don't know anything about Laffitte's devil fruit that turned his arms into wings back during Impel Down. It would have been easy to mention it at the same time we learned about the rest of the OG Blackbeard Pirates' fruits. Having it still be a secret this late in the game means it's probably a little more notable than something like, say, the bird-bird fruit: model pigeon.

I found a new One Piece-themed Youtube channel, GrandLineReview, and I've been getting really into it for commentary and analysis. Unfortunately, all the chapter speculation videos are a little harder to watch knowing they got answered or debunked literally the next week. And you know, the context is a lot fresher when the chapter *just* came out. Same reason why I find it astounding when a Homestuck theory post gets a note. How do you know what the fuck I'm talking about when *I* don't?

But something huge he pointed out is that Dragon was confirmed in the Kuma backstory to be ex-Marine. Dragon is the same age as Sakazuki, so there's a very real possibility they were recruits together. Possibly even friends. And that's why Sakazuki kept referring to Luffy as Dragon's son at The Summit War. It's fucking personal for him.

It's also funny, in a sense, that he said the "Ginny was abducted by the Marines to be a slave and one horrific act later, out pops a baby Bonney" theory was not likely because it was introducing you-know-what into the series and that would be TOO dark for Oda. Well, shit.

Had to clean my microscope and put new batteries into it. As I thought, this exuvia is inconclusive. I saw something that could be a little baby bit of a spermatheca that's just starting to grow in, but it could just as easily be a weird crease. We're talking about a 1" sling here. I'm going to need at least one more instar before I can make any guesses. And even then, it could still be too soon to tell.

I mean, even if it does turn out male, then I'd get to loan him out and receive half the slings from the sacs. Obviously I'd prefer a female, but getting to be part of proliferating this species in the trade wouldn't be a bad consolation prize. Neither would the payout from selling a dozen or so spiders that are already worth $300 at a fraction of an inch. Plus, my male G. pulchra has been with me for over 13 years and isn't even close to maturing yet. This mooreae will be with me for the long haul, just not when I'm pushing 60.

As for the here and now, I am starting to see a faint blue-ish undertone and sparse red setae on its abdomen. That's consistent with what I've seen of small juveniles of the species when the adult coloration is just starting to come in. So I guess for everything he did, Sulayman did not scam me out of an A. mooreae.

He had said this one was a suspected female, but his word means absolutely nothing to me. How could you even make a guess when the spider was even smaller than it is now? He was completely talking out of his ass. He should have sent me an actual female from his selection of 3-4" subadults that he prices at 2 grand. If he did that, I would have considered forgiving him for everything that happened. "Bigger one for the price of a smaller one" my ass. He renewed his ads and everything's the same. So it's like what, he just outright lied to me? Fuck this guy.

My A. mooreae molted and wow, it survived and everything went as it should. You know what the difference was? This one wasn't on the verge of flipping over when it was shoved into a spice shaker full of paper towels and put in the mail.

I'll see if I can examine the exuvia when I get home from work tonight, but it's still so small that I can't make promises. It's completely inconclusive if I don't see a spermatheca on the molt of a ~1" spiderling. For now I'm respecting my new pet's privacy so it can decompress. Literally.

When I analyzed One Piece and mentioned animals that ate zoan fruits to emphasize how the animal's intelligence and consequently its ability to perceive the target form affects the transformation, I forgot about Stronger. The horse that ate the horse-horse fruit: model pegasus. Whose zoan transformation is himself but with wings. Honestly, that both doesn't count and also completely supports my idea.

In other tarantula news, my G. iheringi molted. I already knew she was female, but it's always nice to open up an exuvia and see a nice big spermatheca. For those uninitiated, that's this right here:

It's a sex organ used to store sperm after mating, which causes the eggs to become fertilized as they are laid. People can squabble about the shape and positioning and size ratio of a tarantula's undercarriage until they're blue in the face, but if you see this flap on the inside of a shed exuvia, that's the definitive and 100% infallible way you know it's a female.