I lost one of my chickens :( she was caught and carried away by a fox... I’ve been growing complacent about my chickens’ safety I think because we’ve only had one other attack before, a goshawk that swooped in abruptly (unsuccessfully), but no fox sightings nearby so I’ve been assuming Pandolf was a great deterrent. Which he is, just not foolproof. I’ve talked to some people in town about this and they were pretty philosophical about foxes stealing chickens, like “it’s the tribute we pay to woodland animals, it’s just a few hens here and there.” I don’t begrudge the fox for being a fox, if anything I have a renewed respect for foxes because everyone I talked to proceeded to give me their best / worst fox stories, and most of them involved foxes outsmarting humans (learning people’s habits / timetables, opening latches, faking a limp...) Still I feel terrible for my hen, she was only three. RIP Cordy :( You’ll be remembered fondly... (except by the cats.) I feel bad for the other hen too, who just lost her pal!
When I said that last thing, one of my neighbours jumped on the opportunity to try and convince me again to accept a rooster from him. He had a rooster baby boom last summer and I’ve been telling him for months that I don’t need a rooster, I don’t want to raise chickens I just want eggs, and his new argument was that a rooster would protect my hen (or if it comes to that, would heroically sacrifice himself rather than let the hen be eaten—I’m sceptical...) I asked around for a young hen but there aren’t any to be had in this season, so my remaining one is going to be alone until the spring, and my neighbour said she’d get stressed and male company is better than no company. (I wish I could ask my hen what she wants! Maybe she’s penning A Coop Of One’s Own as we speak.) I said the rooster was more likely to stress her out and harass her and he said nah they’re free ranging all day, it’ll be fine, and he’s young so your adult hen will boss him around. I was like, but then will he be any good at protecting her? etc. etc. and after a while I caved in.
When I told her about this on the phone my mum sighed “you’re terrible at saying no”—excuse me, I said no so many times and the guy just kept ploughing on until he could foist a rooster upon me. I’m good at saying no, other people are terrible at hearing it! I reassured her that I had only agreed to take the rooster for a short probationary period, and if he bothers my hen too much I’ll drive him back to his native farm. My mum was like “Drive him back? look I’m sorry I raised you as a city kid but there’s no need to waste gas on driving a rooster around, I’ll have no qualms about wringing his neck for dinner if he’s more trouble than he’s worth.” The rooster’s fate is not sealed though, if he is anywhere from vaguely useful to not actively problematic I’ll keep him, so we’ll see...!
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I haven't talked about anyone's animalisms much lately. Just to keep anyone interested in the loop, the animalisms are a bunch of traits I give the animatronics based on the animal they are. Like Roxy has Dogisms and Wolfisms, Chica has Chickenisms, etc etc.
This of course, only applies to animal animatronics so Sunny and Moon don't have these. DJ and the Minis maybe have some spider traits, but I don't know a lot about spider behaviour at the moment so they uhhh maybe don't have a big range of Spiderisms. Might ask the local experts about them I dunno
But yeah some examples of animalisms would be the whole thing where Roxy goes ham for squeaker toys, and things like Chica having an ingrained sense of a pecking order, Freddy being more protective of very small children than older kids, Bonnie stamping his foot on the floor a lot, Monty being territorial, etc etc. There's a good number of things for most of them, and some impact their lives more than others, with many if these animal traits being in direct conflict with the programmed character traits. Each of them settles into these traits differently and that's what gives every version of them their individuality.
There's also the part where given that they're not actually animals, the animal traits are displayed in different ways. Like, they're not all one to one things, so there's also the question of how those behaviours translate over to them, which can be an interesting thought exercise.
It's a fun way to look at everyone I think! Adds some interesting layers to them and means you get less of the 'all animals act like dogs or cats' kind of blanket traits that often don't really fit. Makes the differences between them much more pronounced, ya know? It's an interesting source of conflict too! Very fun I think!
I like talking about them and adding to them if someone tells me something about these animals that I don't already know so if anyone wants to talk about them with me, feel free to! Especially if you have any fun facts for them I might not know. I love those!
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Do you still have some headcannons for your proxima midnight family? I absoloutely adore Proxima's family art you made and the mom is just *chefs kiss*
Aw sure omg!! I'm happy to talk about my Prox headcanons! I still had so much of her I never got around to sharing! I can't remember if I ever said her family's names here because the original post I hadn't decided on names for them yet. But her father is Antares, her mother is Helya, and her brother is Craster!
So to kinda give a general sweep of the ideas I had for her species, they aren't super advanced in the technology area, in fact they never leave their home planet so they're an incredibly rare sight anywhere else! They live in big nomadic family units similarly with a lead mated pair (in this case Proxima's parents, Antares and Helya), and extensions of the family as well. I never shared her aunt and cousins, but Helya has a sister named Miev, and Miev has 3 daughters, Estraza, Rhea, and Miran.
Proxima is actually the second youngest of the family (but outgrows everyone except Estraza who is just massive). In order from oldest to youngest of all the kids it would go: Estraza, Rhea, Craster (Proxima's older brother), Proxima, then Miran.
Here are Miev and her girls!! (this art is very old lmao, from 2020)
Proxima only ever got along tentatively with her cousins, minus Estraza who was kind of the second mom of the family unit. But Proxima and Miran especially did not ever really like each other.
Estraza has a husband and they are expecting their first child. She's got those new mom anxieties as well as looking after her sisters because they cannot be trusted to look after themselves (she would really like it if they could get their acts together). Rhea is a grown woman having her rebellious teen phase, she's superficial and a bit full of herself, she just wants to vibe and not be asked to do anything I love her. Miran is complicated, she's like a little 3D printed copy of her mom and is desperate for her approval.
This got a tad long so I put the rest under the cut XD
Miev's husband was killed not long after Miran was born and she never really recovered from it. She lost a lot of weight and just shut down for a while, and Estraza had to step up to take care of her and her sisters. They also rejoined with Prox and her family after that as well. Now Miev is just kind of spiteful and angry at everything (she loves her kids though) but her and her sister have always butted heads so everyone living together again has been a trial for sure lol
Sorry I mostly talked about her aunt and cousins alskjdf I never got to talk about these 4 but I'm flattered you like Helya! She was one of my favorites from back then ;; For a bit about her, she's kind of a tough mom, she's stern but she's also where Proxima gets a lot of who she is from. Proxima was a challenging daughter for sure, but Helya did love her very much and only ever did what she thought was best. Proxima was actually always a daddy's girl, she and her father were very close, meanwhile her brother was the biggest mama's boy lol! And Prox and Cras were good siblings to each other as well, Craster has ENDLESS patience and Proxima REQUIRED endless patience.
There was SO MUCH I had going on in Proxima's story involving her family~ I'd planned out a lot leading up to eventually joining the Black Order. So much DRAMAAA. ESPECIALLY with her aunt, especially with Miran. It would probably be more suited to to a post specifically about the backstory I had for her if anyone would be interested in that, it's been a while since I talked about anything Marvel related XD I don't wanna make this post too long akjkfdgj There's a lot more I could say, I had a lot of headcanons about her species and their culture and all that stuff that ties into story things as well~ I'll bullet a couple points re: her family though!
Prox and Craster loved to wrestle and play fight and she would always lay his ass out lol
Rhea loves doing her sisters' hair and just general family grooming, it's very relaxing for her and she actually does like spending time with her family despite how tired of everyone she acts. Miran was her main victim for the longest time because she was the youngest. On the RAREST occasions Proxima would join and they'd have a proper Girls Night.
Estraza always made a point to include Proxima in things because Proxima would otherwise not include herself. Prox had a lot of respect for Estraza so she'd always kinda just do what she said lol. It annoyed her mom a little bit because she really didn't listen to Helya all that much.
Estraza lost her eye in the same event that killed her father.
Rhea is considered rather unnaturally beautiful so she's very popular with guys but lord help her because she 100% doesn't know what to do when being courted lmao it's all fun and games for her until someone tries to flirt and then she's all "mom come pick me up I'm scared".
Rhea actually did like Proxima and wanted to connect with her, but the two are so fundamentally different and Rhea takes things VERY personally so Proxima's general disinterest would hurt her pride lol
Helya pretty much regards her nieces as other daughters. Miev cannot say the same about Craster and Prox though.
ldksjdf I'll pause here, I'd be happy to talk about them more for sure! I really liked what I had going with Proxima's story and family, I'd love to revive it somehow ;; There was so much omg like she was all I thought about for a long time, I miss her so much ;A;
Thank you for asking about her and her fam!!! It meant a lot knowing someone was interested in hearing more about them after all this time <333
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