#Manmade Pollution

[kyreniacommentator]

Pollution In The Gaziveren Region Has Been Removed

Pollution In The Gaziveren Region Has Been Removed The Environmental Protection Department of the Ministry of Tourism, Culture, Youth and Environment of the Deputy Prime Minister’s Office confiscated the medicine boxes seen in the Gaziveren region after a media outlet shared images on social media. Continue reading Pollution In The Gaziveren Region Has Been Removed

[mattastr0phic]

Meri Wojciechowski - SCP 166

Meri currently works as cleanup/recovery for environments that have been damaged or otherwise polluted by Foundation intervention. While she's technically covering up their involvement, she takes the opportunity to study native flora and restore any area to its prime, growing back plants stronger than before and cleaning water to a livable standard for the native fauna. There are even protocols for moving manmade objects out of an area she's meant to cover.

Since it's getting closer to that time of year, I find that a lot of people still frequently confuse white tailed deer with reindeer/caribou. This is not me nitpicking about what's stated in the SCP article, and people can draw what they like! I just want to see reindeer more widely known as well, since they're beautifully unique in comparison.

Reindeer eyes change color throughout warmer and colder seasons from gold to blue to compensate for the differing light levels, their hooves have a wider spread to act as snowshoes, and they're extremely fluffy, being the only deer to have a completely furred snout structured so that they retain moisture even in cold, dry environments, so you're unable to see their breath in the cold like people. That's not even the end of the list of interesting things they can do.

I recommend the Cairngorm Reindeer Herd if you want references (and cute pictures) of reindeer! It would be genuinely amazing to see more actual reindeer Meri's exploring the neat features of these underrated creatures.

Bonus note: Reindeer calves (reindeer utilize the same male/female references as bovines, being bulls and cows respectively) do NOT possess the same spots as a juvenile white deer. Please observe: the adorable little Svalbard reindeer calf, the smallest reindeer species in the world.

[rungssparemodelpieces]

Enrichment

Takes place in @tinydefector Merformers AU either as a side story or separate continuity! Thank you for the inspiration!

The scent of salty brine filled the air as it was just another quiet day at the marine centre. With few eyes to observe the Oceanides at the center, be it for research or recreationally, a pair of blue eyes decided to take up the mantel as Rung observed the few humans that were wandering around, finding their interactions quite assuming as he liked to compare how similar their behaviors were to Oceanides. He liked watching people and would sometimes try to mimic some of their mannerisms such as a hand wave or a grin though these have been met with mixed results or confusion from the caretakers feeding or observing him. He knew from experience furrowed brows weren’t a good sign but he was still trying to learn how to at least communicate back in a way they could understand.

With Rung being an older Mer, he would stay back more at the center, balancing the solace he got in his alcove with hunting and interacting with his pod. Though he didn’t seem like the most active member, he did show a habit of decorating his area with an odd array of trinkets, some assumed to be from previous hunts such as large and unknown bones or manmade items like used car parts or toys that were either lost or dumped into the ocean. The marine centre has tried to remove or replace the pollutants but Rung has been rather shown to have an attachment towards these items. To counteract this, you were instructed to work on finding other items for him to collect and display that were found in his natural environment.

It was enrichment, or so that’s what Dr. Quin called it and for an Oceanides so old, it was a good way to keep his skills sharp and to give him exercise while staying around the area. When Rung went out hunting with his pod, you would dive in and scatter these trinkets for him to find. You’ve even buried or hid a few to see if he could find them and problem solving how to get them out. Rung seems excited to find new treasures for his trove, chirping and showing you when he found one before going back for more.

This arrangement has been your personal project for months as others focused more on the lone baby and the next generation of Oceanides. So far you’ve found success with shells, bones, coral, and oddly shaped rocks but it seemed as of recent, he was struggling to find items that were near him or even in plain sight, feeling around until he eventually found the object in question. In light of this new problem, you’ve been taking the day to observe him, wondering what you could do to help his decline in his quality of life here.

It seemed the answer was closer than you speculated as while adjusting some rocks around Rung’s sleeping area, a small splash caught his attention as he saw a strange piece of plastic flutter down, swimming over cautiously as the object hit the sandy floor with a poof. Once the sand settled, he noticed the item was an odd contraption he noticed some humans wore on their faces, perhaps to assist with their vision or to distinguish one from another.

Carefully, Rung picked up the glasses and out of curiosity, placed them on his face. It took a few tries as the sides of the frame poked at his gills but eventually, he was able to place them comfortably on his face. Looking through the clear glass, it became very apparent to him that the theory this device helped with vision was correct as he looked around, seeming the lagoon around him in better detail.

The stones and shells that lined the sand became more defined and he was able to notice more of the colorful details the small fish that fluttered in and out displayed. With this realization, Rung started to happily swim around and look around the lagoon with a new, clearer perspective.

~~

Meanwhile, you were helping an intern at the marine centre pick up some papers as she bumped into you, barely able to see over their own papers. The fledgling intern, Donna, squinted hard as she tried to find all the notes that had scattered in the collision.

“Is something wrong?” You asked as she seemed to be panicked, scrambling to find something more important than her notes.

“I- I can’t find my glasses,” Donna muttered as she tried her best to find them, her searching more erratic before she turned towards the open water, fear clear on her face, “I think- I think they might have fallen in when I bumped into you.”

You gave her a pat on the shoulder in an attempt to reassure her there was nothing to worry about. “It’ll be fine, we can get them back, Shrimp’s easy going and won’t mind if we pop in to retrieve them.”

With that, you leaned over the railing briefly, trying to get a hint of where Shrimp was before noting the flash of orange and white darting the water below, deciding to call out to him to see if he would respond or if he was in distress.

“Shrimp!” With the call of his name, Rung poked his head out of the water, his blue eyes appearing much larger due to the glasses he was wearing. A small chuckle escaped your lips as you called him over, finding the image quite humorous.

“It seems Shrimp decided to try on your glasses,” you commented to Donna before leaning down closer to Rung’e eye level, a bittersweet smile on their face as you held out your hand. “I’m sorry I have to ask but I need those glasses back.”

Rung dipped his head mostly in the water at this request, not wanting to lose this tool that he was just starting to enjoy. A rumble of his gills caused the water to ripple out around him as he pouted in disapproval.

“Look, I’ll ask Quin if we can find you another pair but Donna needs those back so she can see,” you asked him, the Mer still not relenting as a burb of bubbles left his mouth as if sighing.

“I promise I’ll get you another pair, you have my word.” A few moments later, he conceded, handing the glasses back before retreating under the water before you could thank him, obviously sad about returning the glasses but seemingly understood that Donna needed them back.

Returning the glasses, Donna thanked you before scurrying away, your focus returning to the lagoon for a brief moment before returning back to the facility proper.

~~

“You’re requesting glasses, is that correct?” Dr. Quin attempted to clarify as she looked at your request for numerous pairs of waterproof glasses. The request was odd, to say the least, but she wanted to hear you out first before making her decision.

“Yes,” you stated before explaining yourself, “Earlier today, Donna’s glasses ended up near Shrimp in the lagoon and looking the video feed from that time, it seemed he not only enjoy playing with them but benefited from wearing them. He was swimming around excitedly and interacting like he could fully see his environment! I think giving him the option to choose and wear some would help him greatly… and I did promise him I would give him another pair to wear.”

You rubbed your arm nervously, knowing it was a long shot, but seeing at least one Mer so happy, especially with priorities being with the future generations of Oceanides, it made you feel like you could at least help one in the long run, a minor victory on the road ahead.

“Then we better find him a pair that works,” Dr. Quin stated as she signed her name for approval, a hum in her voice before being cut off by a hug and thank you from you, a pat on the back signaling you to lighten up on the embrace, “And besides, I don’t want you to break a promise.”

Excited, you thanked her once more before starting the process of finding glasses that might fit an Oceanides more comfortably.

~~

Rung poked at the sand that lined the floor of the lagoon, prodding under the dark blur he assumed was a rock or perhaps an clam before he heard you call him by the nickname you gave him, curious as it wasn’t feeding time yet. Perhaps it was another medical check, especially given his age.

Either way, he swam to the surface to find you kneeling down by the shore, a strange box in hand and an excited look on your face. “Hey, Shrimp, remember that promise I made about the glasses? Well, I kept it,” you mused before handing him a pair, “I hope these work for you.”

Upon realizing what you had, Rung excitedly took the glasses, putting them on and… frowning it seemed these frames made his vision worse, taking them off as the blurriness hurt his head.

“Oh, it seems those don’t work for you,” he mused, offering a different pair to him, “I have a few pairs until we find the right ones for you.” Through some trial and error, it seemed he found the perfect pair, big blue orbs staring at you as he swished his tail happily, the air being filled with a few melodic hums of excitement.

Though through your eyes, Shrimp was excited to see clearly again, Rung was ecstatic that the first thing he saw clearly again was your face. The way that your hair clung around your face, the light crisp from the sea water, the smile on your lips, slightly chapped from working outside and in the water, it was all so incredible to him. You were incredible to him and it made him feel something, something deep and primal that stirred inside him as he trilled in thanks before diving back down to the depths. He was searching for something, something that would interest you, something that would show he had interest in you, and maybe, just maybe, be able to communicate what you mean to him.

[entities-of-posts]

Does the Extinction extend metaphorically, or is it purely literal about environmental issues, and the idea of a world without humans as a whole?

Like, I personally extend The Extinction to include the fear of actions having consequences and things being ruined by your own hands. Like, you have made this thing, you have made it with your own hands, and you have such high hopes, and then it’s coming for you. (See: plastics, pesticides, etc. made with intent and care, now causing horrible damage) The Terrible Change You Have Wrought, if you will.

I also consider it to be things that were changed and twisted, like the mutated birds(? It’s been a while), that were in the extinction domain. They clearly were once normal birds or the descendants of normal birds, they weren’t replaced by something pretending to be birds, or modified by a Boneturner, but they’re mutated and twisted into something horrible.

Also, does the extinction have to be on the global/species/population level, or could it be individual?

This bit ^ came about as I was trying to assign some characters I liked to entities. There’s one who is essentially the kid of his target, and his target trained him to be a vigilante. But he got taken and tortured, and what he wants now is vengeance on his ex-parent. He wants to upend their world, destroy his parent’s legacy/life, everything they built, get them to understand that he is the future and that they are not going to be there for it (via murder). Also, this character is working with some people and helps to gas the (evacuated) city, which is fairly polluting, imo.

So anyway, thoughts on him, and on the extinction in general?

All the examples you give do fall under the Extinction, but they also all do relate to environmental fears. But it’s true that it’s not only about the environment; in a more general way, it’s about the future of society and the march of technology. Are the children permanently melting their brains with iPads and generative AI? Are we losing all values and morals as a society? Is there still space for the human in a world ran by papers and numbers and The Economy? Why is it impossible to just walk to the store? It was different when I was young. How long can we keep going like this?

Guilt is an essential part of it; the horrors are manmade. We are speeding towards a wall, and we know it, but all of us still keep shoveling coal in the furnace, whether we want to or not. But it is difficult to separate it from the global aspect. A very key point of it is that the responsibility is collective, and thus the doom is unavoidable. You could stop shoveling the coal. You could become a hermit in the woods and never again be responsible for the burning of a gram of fuel or the purchase of a single piece of plastic, and it would make absolutely no difference. Mankind, the ever hungering beast, keeps right on. The whole world and its future is at stake.

When you zoom further in, when the ruin and the responsibility is personal, it really just becomes the Desolation. Without the global nature of the threat and the sins, you lose the aspect of environmental, technological, and societal change, and you also don’t get, well, the end of the world - only the end of yours. You’re only left with destruction. There’s a perfectly good ancient Fear for that.

[allthebrazilianpolitics]

During Brazil's worst drought, wildfires rage and the Amazon River falls to a record low

Brazil is enduring its worst drought since nationwide measurements began over seven decades ago, with 59% of the country under stress — an area roughly half the size of the U.S.

Major Amazon basin rivers are registering historic lows, and uncontrolled manmade wildfires have ravaged protected areas and spread smoke over a vast expanse, plummeting air quality.

“This is the first time that a drought has covered all the way from the North to the country's Southeast,” Ana Paula Cunha, a researcher at the National Center for Monitoring and Early Warning of Natural Disasters, said in a statement Thursday. “It is the most intense and widespread drought in history.”

Smoke on Monday afternoon caused Sao Paulo, a metropolitan area of 21 million people, to breathe the second most polluted air in the world after Lahore, Pakistan, according to data gathered by IQAir, a Swiss air technology company.

Continue reading.

[swaglet]

god's sickest most cruel joke ever was making me the world's number 1 fan of seafood but then dropping me like a sim in the middle of a landlocked area of bumfuck nowhere pennsyltucky where the nearest bodies of water are random manmade reservoirs full of invasive species that can be readily fished up except they're full of fish herpes, many other diseases, and pollution unlike any you've ever seen OR lake erie where the legality of fishing is complicated and also there's no fucking crab in there

[unrooms]

The thought comes to you that you should figure out what you have available, so you check your pockets. You have your phone, of course, plus a half-empty pack of gum, a detention slip, and a couple random wrappers. Seeing what you're doing, Ella follows suit and turns up her phone, small notebook and handful of pens and pencils, and wallet.

"Oh, some of my pens are missing... they must have fallen out in bed. I always forget to take them out of my pockets first..."

You laugh quietly and she gives you a wry grin.

"Well," she says, "maybe my notebook'll be useful, at least."

A quick check shows that neither of your phones seem to have service. Or at least- it's weird. It keeps switching between saying they have service and saying they don't. You assume that there wouldn't be any service here, wherever here is, anyway.

You look around, trying to make sense of your strange surroundings. The landscape is hilly. Different textures cover different areas; they mix chaotically where they meet. The ground under your feet is a green, overlapping texture, almost like scales, except that it's soft and squishy. A nearby hill is overtaken by light blue bumps. Most of the nearby area is covered in orange fluff, and in the distance you can see clusters of tall yellow stalks that remind you of bamboo, and blue-covered hills. Beyond those hills, there's some kind of blackish, geometric structure that looks like it might be manmade. But it's far away.

Small, weird creatures wander around everywhere- they look... well, every creature you see looks different, but mostly they look sort of goopy, like slimes. Only they're disturbingly close to flesh- or skin-colored. Most of them are small enough they don't seem like a threat to you, but they creep you out. There is a big one- taller than either of you- not too far away, but it's not moving or doing anything, and it's not that close either.

The sky is weird. It looks like nighttime, but there's a sun in the sky, and the ground is daylit. And... you live in the city, so light pollution means you don't see that many stars anyway, but you've seen pictures of the night sky in the wilderness. You've been entranced by the countless stars. The stars here are... definitely countable.

Ella catches you staring at the sky. "...You okay?"

"..It's so empty. Like there's nothing out there."

She looks too. "...Weird. Maybe... we're on the edge of the universe?"

You look at her with alarm. She just shrugs helplessly. You can't think of anything to say to that, either.

...What now?

[jamgrlsart]

Reminder that my Art Requests for Political Action are still available!! (See my pinned post!!)

My birthday is coming up (May 6), and getting some art requests in exchange for political action would be a great birthday present! If you don’t know what action to do, call or email your reps and ask them to stand up for the EPA’s Office of Research and Development, where I work. (Skip ahead for a script!!)

I am still holding the line and it’s HARD. Between demeaning emails, micromanagement, surveillance, multiple violations of our collective bargaining agreements and rights, and threats of firings held over our heads while we are offered buyouts, I am doing a lot of emotional labor just to keep doing my job and serving the American people. This has been going on since Inauguration Day. All of the environmental justice workers at EPA have already received notice of intent to fire. (To be clear—their crime is working in a program that has existed since the 90s and is focused on protecting the public health of vulnerable communities). We are expecting more waves of firings and it’s not going to be pretty. This is taking a long time because there are a lot of protections for federal workers so that the federal workforce isn’t dismantled and replaced every time there is an administration change (political control of the entire federal workforce is scary because an entirely political federal workforce is highly susceptible to fascism). This administration doesn’t care about the law, democracy, or the American people. I do!!

Help me defend worker’s rights and democracy with a phone call or email that takes you less than 5 minutes!! (And get an art request filled if you do!)

Below is a script specifically about EPA’s Office of Research and Development (where I work), which I personally wrote for you 😍:

Hello (Name of Rep). I am (your name) and I live at (your address, to show you are a constituent—you do not have to be voting age!). I am calling (or writing) to ask you to stand up for the EPA’s Office of Research and Development. I care about research that protects public health from harmful chemicals and other air and water pollutants and prepares for emergency response to natural and manmade disasters. I am concerned that a reduction in research scientists at the EPA will impact my and my family’s health. Please call or email me and let me know what you are doing to defend the scientific research that protects my health. (Offer email or phone number.) Thank you.

Find scripts for other issues on 5calls.org!!

In my experience, reps do not respond to phone calls, but they do respond to emails. If you call during working hours, you might actually get someone on the phone. If you don’t want that, call outside working hours and leave a message. Regardless of how you contact, they do keep a tally of how many people are for or against various issues. Your voice matters!!!

[quirkle2]

[zombie au] the written version of this post but like.way more harrowing (3.5k words)

It’s been a long time since Ritsu has seen the stars.

When he and his brother were little, stars were very important to them. An obsession from one brother meant it was an obsession by association for the other—Shigeo would listen to Ritsu ramble about types of stars and facts about comets for hours. He’d always be so patient about it, even if Ritsu stumbled over the big words.

Ritsu has always loved space, and the imagery that comes with it—his favorite planet has always been Neptune ever since he learned of the existence of its rings. He finds supernovas fascinating, nebulae even more so; the cycle of life for bodies so beyond his understanding had never failed to capture his attention and hold it until its last breath.

At six years old, his father had taken him and Shigeo on a camping trip. His brother had gotten carsick on the way there, their father’s card had been declined when trying to pay for gas, and Ritsu had nearly caused a crash the way he suddenly screamed about a spider in the seat with him. Looking back, he’s sure the journey had been about eighty percent stress for his father.

For Ritsu, it had rewired him.

It’d been the first time he’d ever seen so many stars in the sky. It’d been the first time he’d ever been outside the city to begin with, the first time he could look out over the horizon and not see the treeline replaced with geometric, manmade light. He’d been so enamored by it his neck hurt the next morning from straining to drink everything in.

His brother gave it all that subtle smile, that surface-level spark of appreciation, and then he’d gone to bother their father about s’mores—he’d left him there in front of their tent to gawk at the expanse, at the majesty. Their voices had been far away, and the stars had felt so close.

That same majesty had blanketed him when they’d escaped the city, after the start of the apocalypse, but despite his lifelong love for all things space, he hadn’t found it in himself to enjoy it. Before, it’d been light pollution to fog his obsession.

Now, it’s… well, it’s a lot of things.

The air is crisp in his lungs, and dry against his cold fingers. The plastic of the truck bed against his back creaks and wobbles when Tome shifts in her spot. The crickets are loud in the absence of conversation, but Ritsu appreciates the songs they play—he taps his collarbone with two fingers to the beat of their melody, never having been much of a music lover in the past, but slowly learning its importance.

He senses Tome lean and angles his head down to watch her loom over his brother, squished against his side. She observes him for a moment, studying, and then her eyes flick to Ritsu’s and she’s mouthing something to him in the quiet.

He catches something like sleep and it’s all he really needs to get the gist. Ritsu lifts his head from the bed of the truck, double-chinned, to peek at his brother’s face.

Cheek smooshed up to his hip, limply hugging his thigh, and probably drooling on his t-shirt. He eyes the edges of his silhouette in the dark, watches the rise and fall of his chest and notes how it’s slower, and steady.

For the past few days, everything about him has been… droopy. The lids, the nonsensical speech, the sloppy movements, the slurred cracks of saliva in his throat when Ritsu takes something out of his mouth. Before they’d found this truck, abandoned on a dirt backroad they’d been walking along for hours, Ritsu had seen the pure, glassy exhaustion in Shigeo’s eyes and prayed for a decent place to settle down.

The bed of a truck that has a bloodied backseat and bullet holes in the rear windshield isn’t necessarily a decent place, but it’s passable.

Shigeo’s eyes are closed, and when Ritsu shifts his leg, his brother does not rise. He breathes out a sigh that feels heavy on his soul, but the sound is made of relief and Tome sags too.

The tension pressing down on the truck bed releases, and Ritsu assumes it’s his imagination when they seem to lift an inch from the weight taken off the flat wheels. They’re left in a silence that, for once, feels empty in a calming way. There is little substance to it, little to complain about in the moment, and Ritsu can tell he’s not the only one basking in that shallowness.

“Thank God,” Tome mumbles into the dark. Neither of them are particularly afraid of waking him up—once he’s out, he’s out for a while and dead to the world during it. “It was starting to make me tired just looking at him.”

Ritsu cannot help but agree, but somewhere in his own long-lived exhaustion he forgets he’s supposed to respond and instead just stares while Tome adjusts. She wraps her knees with her arms and stilts them up to make an X, stares out over the truck siding and traces the edges of the cornfield around them.

The crickets fill his lack of reply with croaks and chirps, and Tome seems used to his odd stints of silence. It’s a bit of a lullaby, and Ritsu finds himself drooping too, yet he’s unable to close his eyes and give into it.

Instead, he stares with a fuzzy gaze at the stars directly in his line of sight, and realizes they’ve been there the whole time. Of course they have, he thinks, and it’s one of those obvious things that hits him much too late to even stifle it, and he’s left with a thrum in his mind that’s of a vaguely embarrassed timbre.

He sees the stars every night. It’s just been quite a long time since he’s seen them.

There is something about the quiet, modest glint to them that funnels all that nostalgia to the forefront. The smell of s’mores and campfire smoke, the dust on old library books and the ache in his muscles that came with carrying too many nonfiction copies in his little arms. The cold, factual tone of documentary narrators over the coolest computer animations Ritsu’s ever seen, no matter how low quality the textures were.

His mother leaning over his shoulder, kissing his scalp and humming out a laugh when he pointed at all the comets crudely drawn into his looseleaf. His father bringing home science books that’d get more and more complicated as Ritsu grew older, but he soaked them up and memorized each paragraph like it was his duty to recite them perfectly.

Shigeo, eyes seemingly sparkling whenever Ritsu even opened his mouth and so, so incredibly patient, nodding in those little excited bursts when he’d explained how stars were born. Giggling when Ritsu threw his arms out under their little blanket fort in his bedroom, reenacting those supernovas he loves so much and spilling the blankets on their heads.

Ritsu realizes that maybe it isn’t nostalgia, because it feels quite bitter on the tongue. It’s something close, but it’s too… aggrieved to be nostalgia.

“So what’s your take?” Tome speaks over the crickets, over the crisp air that makes her shiver as she scoots down the truck bed to lie on her back. One of her arms is pinned under Shigeo. She doesn’t bother to yank it out from under him.

“On…?” he mumbles lazily, exhaustion peeling at his patience. He fights the urge to close his eyes because if he does he knows he’ll pass out on her instantly and he needs her on his good side.

Tome’s hair pillows under her head in a spiraled, jumbled mess while she loosely copies his position. He just knows she’s going to complain about the knots in it for the sixtieth time tomorrow morning, and he starts mentally preparing for that.

“How the apocalypse started.” She tilts her head toward him while she talks, but her eyes stay glued to the stars. “Got any good theories?” 

Ritsu slowly slogs through the question, wishing he were asleep instead. Maybe he should just pass out. “Mh… I dunno,” he shrugs noncommittally. His legs ache, and he shuffles them around to press his calves against the rough plastic of the bed. “I don’t really think about that stuff.”

A partial lie; he occasionally feels ungodly amounts of hatred toward whoever started it—if a human being even started it at all—and occasionally wanders if it would be morally incorrect to shoot the fucker between the eyes if he ever meets them.

“Oh c’moooon,” Tome drawls, tilting her head as far back as it’ll go against the rivets underneath them and finally looking his way. There’s an odd weight to her gaze, like she’s looking for something in his face a little too closely, and he suddenly, inexplicably feels vulnerable.

Her free hand comes up to gesture just above her stomach, flippant. “You’ve gotta have something!”

He considers fabricating some ridiculous answer, but he finds he doesn’t have the energy to. That knowing glint in her eyes has him backstepping a little bit, and he scratches at his neck habitually and shrugs out a reply. “Not really.”

Ritsu moves the hand on his collarbone and flops it above his head, the zippers of his backpack sliding along his knuckles. He searches for the dangling pull to fidget with, and he senses Tome look away from him and back to the sky.

She then says, quietly in the air, “Well I think it’s aliens.”

Ritsu blinks slowly at the stars, lagging a little, and then the words catch up to him and he can’t stop himself from side-eyeing her hard.

“Aliens?” he echoes, a disbelieving lilt to his voice that borders on hilarity.

Tome nods matter-of-factly, comically genuine about it, and for a moment he doesn’t know whether he should openly be a dick and brick her dreams, let her down softly, or allow her to float.

There are a lot of things he could say to this, and he decides to settle for somewhere in the middle of all three. “You need to be medicated.”

It’s poured out over a tired grin and lazy, wandering eyes that trail the sky, soft and a little prudent. Tome grins back, like she was expecting that answer. It’s sharper than his fuzzy, weary edges.

“You need way more medication than me,” Tome teases, “I’m serious about it and it’s true.”

“Nevermind,” Ritsu breathes, lifting his head to pillow it under a hand, “I actually don’t think medicine can fix you.”

“Aliens are real.”

“Okay,” is calmly fed back, unperturbed but not convinced.

“Nobody ever takes me seriously after I say that,” Tome rolls onto her side, facing him, hair draping over the hand that’s propped against her head. Shigeo is jostled, but stays still and silent.

“Wonder why,” Ritsu deadpans.

“They’re scared of the truth!”

“Mmmmh. Sure.”

“They don’t wanna admit it.”

“They don’t.”

“And neither do you.”

“And neither do I.”

“Stop that.”

“Stop what?”

“Doing that—stop just agreeing with me.”

“Okay. You’re wrong.”

Tome tsks in a funny gauh sound, gesturing to the sky and shaking her head as if it’ll help her, and then, “Shigeo would believe me.”

Ritsu can feel her freeze up, even if they’re not touching. He can feel the way the air gets a degree colder and that weight comes back down to press against the truck bed and their chests. He breathes through it—he doesn’t think Tome even tries to.

She waits, breath baited, balancing on those eggshells she usually stomps on. She’s never been one to shy away from kicking him while he’s down, at least in the past. Those little pokes and jabs are something he simply had to get used to, if he wanted that much-needed help.

He thinks about the look she gave him earlier, the one that left him feeling centered in her claws while he stared at the stars and reminisced. He wonders what changed her demeanor. He wonders if his increasingly exhausted eyes lately have anything to do with it.

She’s waiting to see if she’s toeing a line, studying his face with sharp basil and calculating exactly how many eggshells she’s stepping on, listening to the crackles. Ritsu counts with her and finds it odd that he doesn’t already know the answer.

“No he wouldn’t,” he hears himself say, just to have something in the air between them that isn’t tension. He’s unsure if it’s true—it’s so silly he doesn’t even bother fact checking it. He’s too focused on the fact that Tome seems more attuned to what he’s feeling than he does. “You know nothing about him, you’re walking right into failure here.”

Something like relief flashes there in her irises, and the substance to the air dissipates a fraction. A brief moment of mischief and a close cousin of anger follows it, and then she swallows back the righteousness and smoothes out that sharp edge to her smile. “Okay, Mr. Genius. Maybe it’s time I ask The Question, then.”

Ritsu’s grin disappears, quickly at first, and then it floats down into a numb line and they’re suddenly in a much different kind of quiet. It’s still, almost suffocatingly so, but the crickets carry that old, childhood sense of safety with their song. The world loses that presently sharp, shiny finish and everything in existence suddenly feels matte against his atoms, flat and smooth and dry. Distant, and unreal.

She says it with a capital T and a capital Q, and despite how bold the statement is in the world of their little war between each other, she looks at him with an invitation to back down. It’s offered up like a challenge at first, but as she leaves the implications of it to marinate he can feel her confidence slipping. Her gaze is open and curious, but it’s poised for disappointment and acceptance of the fact.

If he searches, he can almost see the apologetic look hidden beneath it all, like she’s sorry she even asked him of such a thing.

The Question has gone unspoken, until now, but Tome continues once she feels she’s given him ample time to cut the cord on it all, and then she lets it out. “What was he like?” Quiet words, with such deafening reminders.

Ritsu stares, and he tries to think about how to summarize somebody he loves so much.

To Tome, he has been nothing but a kid who was bitten a long while ago. To her, he’s a husk, of a stranger, of a boy who’d often been a stranger even to people close to him. To this girl, Shigeo is one zombie in a crowd of billions, and the little sparks of personality in that dying flame of his core probably seem quite feeble and unimpressive.

To Ritsu, that all means everything.

“He was,” he stutters out, stilted and slow, as his racing mind jams every messy thought to the forefront, “quiet. He was really quiet, in everything he did, to most people. Sometimes you’d have to strain to hear him.”

He keeps his eyes on the edge of the truck bed, because if he doesn’t, he’d have to meet Tome’s gaze and he doesn’t think he’s capable of that anymore. “Really soft-spoken. Really gentle, but he could get intense when he wanted.”

In the silence, he’s very aware of his breathing, and the slow, steady bobbing of his own hand resting on his diaphragm. He works to keep it that way. “People ignored him a lot—said they barely registered his presence,” he says, with just a touch of sourness to his tone, “A lotta people would say most of him felt… ‘muted.’

“But I never understood that, cuz…” Because it was so wrong. “Cuz everything he did, he did it with all he had. And that was loud to me.

“He’d stay up all night in calls with our friend Teru, when he was upset. He’d bring home cookies for me if he knew I had a long day.” The twinge of a smile on his face is despairingly bittersweet. His breaths are steady. “All of the kids at school thought it was cool to hate your parents, but Shige looked sad when they said stuff like that and he came home and hugged them longer than usual.

“He’d cry if he accidentally stepped on a ladybug. He’d wave to frogs he saw on the sidewalk like they were his best friends,” he chuckles, and it brings a delicate little grin from Tome. It all feels very brittle. “He was the gentlest guy you could ever meet, and he loved everything.”

Ritsu swivels his head to look at the stars, and wonders why they’re staring at him so innocently. Wonders why it makes him want to cry. “Everything, even the stuff nobody else did,” he mumbles, voice small, “He picked bruised fruits from the store baskets cuz ‘nobody else will want them.’ He forgave his bullies instantly, even if they didn’t deserve it, even if Shige was still mad at them. He was too nice, sometimes. He let people walk all over him.”

He lets his teeth show a little, bares them in a shaky display. He remembers a day in class where Shigeo defended a kid from a couple brats, and then they all turned on him instead, including the kid he was defending. The next week Shigeo had helped that same boy pick up his books, and he’d been shoved to the tiled floor instead of thanked. Ritsu couldn’t decide whether to be mad about the cruelty, or mad about Shigeo’s selfless, stubborn character who didn’t seem to learn any lessons.

His throat feels sore. There is something sweltering and lumpy forming in the back of his mouth and he swallows it down. “He was really shy and talking to people was hard for him, but he stood up to people when others were being made fun of, even if his voice shook.”

A little Shigeo’s tiny words, trembling just like his hands. Feeling everything on Earth when they all said he couldn’t. Quietly, silently bearing it when the world kicked him down, and all he ever did back was be kind to it.

Ritsu learned from Shigeo’s mistakes, and he never defended any bullied kids, never tried to be kind for the simple act of being kind. Shigeo didn’t view them as mistakes at all. Maybe he’d been right about that.

“He was the only kid I’d ever known to be genuine about stuff. Compared to Shige, everybody else’s achievements seemed… shallow,” Ritsu bares his teeth again, at the world, at the stars, and they stare flatly back, “People told him to ‘get a clue,’ ‘get a personality,’ and I never understood why they did that, because Shige seemed like the smartest one there, to me. The richest in personality.

“Maybe not in an academic sense, but he already knew how to love things.” The hand on his chest bobs unsteadily. “He knew how to love life before he was taught how to walk. And above that, ya’know… what else matters?”

He’s too afraid to glance at Tome, because she is eerily silent and he doesn’t have the bravery to tear his gaze away from the sky. It hurts to look at that too, but he doesn’t know what else to stare at.

His breaths are steady. His breaths are steady, and the bottom of his vision is clear. He smiles again, bittersweet. The bottom of his vision is clear.

“You know what his favorite planet was?” he asks with a little voice, stifles a sniffle.

Tome takes a few beats to respond. “Mh… he seems like a Jupiter kinda guy.”

Ritsu shakes his head, and the smile he gives is not happy. “Planet Earth,” he croaks.

It sits for a beat, and in the air he can feel it, the common hesitance. “Yeah. When people first hear that, they usually go… ‘really? Earth?’” he chuckles wetly, moving his hands to copy their gestures, “Like… of all the cool, alien planets in our solar system, you chose Earth? The one we already know so much of, the one we’ve already studied inside and out? The one that feels so… mundane, to us?”

Ritsu’s favorite planet is Neptune, for its rings and its blue coat of paint. Shigeo’s was Earth, for its everything.

“But he loved the mundane. He showed love to the things people took for granted, to the uglier sides of them,” he breathes. It is not steady. His vision smears the stars into streaks. “He always did that.”

The crickets do nothing to cover his unsteady, long inhales, and the wetness of his cheeks and along his temples is cold against the air. Tome speaks after a few long, long beats, and her voice is quiet.

“... sounds like he’s got a heart of gold,” she whispers, and when Ritsu swivels his head to look at her, something like a supernova goes off in his own chest.

He cannot help but notice that she refers to Shigeo Kageyama in the present tense, and Ritsu does not.

[mattywrites]

These last few days the rain has been constant. The temperatures have been hitting as low as 18C, which is uncommon for high summer. When the rain breaks I've been putting on my music and walking by the water, taking photos of the waves as they crash against the natural and manmade wave breaks. By the water, as the oddly warm wind whips around you, you feel a truly deep connection with the natural world. It's easy to forget everything wrong with the world when it's just you, your music, and that connection you share with nature. For those moments, all else is meaningless. It's almost like a state of Zen, or Nirvana. Your relationship woes, the people you've hurt, the hurt that's been inflicted upon you, the vicious nature of all things that exists exclusively in the realms of human dominion, it's all trivial and utterly unimportant. It's out in the real world, you truly begin to understand, our connection with the world itself is everything. No wonder we're so miserable surrounded by all of these objects of scorn. The electricity that courses above our heads through powerlines, the wi-fi and Bluetooth frequencies, signals, and fields that we live in, and the networking cables beneath our feet that link us to other countries and even continents. So many of us go out of our way to avoid Mother Nature because it's her domain is an inconvenience to us and our current lifestyles and/or way of life. We encroach further and further into her abode; the last and most ancient vestiges of our species still scattered in the deepest, darkest pockets of old growth forests and woods. Once upon a time, not so long ago in the timeline of our species' history, we lived symbiotically with Mother Nature. The rain was our friend and the cool, refreshing feel of her tears upon our skin was a reminder of our own mortality and of the intricate link between nature and us; mankind. There is a line in an older Weedeater song that's stuck with me ever since I first heard it, "Mankind is unkind, man." How painfully true it is. We are unkind to ourselves, but especially to our original mother, Mother Nature; the earth itself. So when I walk by the ocean a little later on today, I will reflect on how beautiful it is to be alive in this moment, and to exist in a time period where I can still walk along by the water and breath deeply of the cool salty air, filling my lungs with the essence of the earth itself. The smells of the moss and mud. The familiar sound of seabirds and of the waves themselves. I will appreciate them. Soon, not too far away, this will be taken from all of us. The lakes and oceans will be polluted, irradiated, and toxic. The birds will no longer sing for us, the wind will no longer carry the smell of the briny ocean, but the stench of death and rot. We will have ripped whatever resources out from the earth, and in its place we will leave disease, famine, poverty, and pestilence. The legacy of our species will be written on future maps and our descendants, and the children of our descendants, will walk what tiny parts of the natural world that remain, weeping over everything we lost and were too selfish to prevent, learning about how we destroyed everything we should've always remained connected to in the first place. That poverty, the one of never having experienced the might and majesty of nature itself, will forever mark and stain our species. When we're the very last ones left, once we've ripped and raped everything from this earth. We will persist as the apex predators. The apex of nothing and the pinnacle of ultimate annihilation.

[jkl-fff]

what was your inspo for the daily asks? i love them btw

Thanks for the ask and the interest! I'm delighted to hear you and others enjoy them so much. Makes me feel like I'm doing something worthwhile.

As a general project, Silly Game Time was inspired by a few things.

First, for a while before I started it, I would see a certain kind of post lamenting deteriorations in Tumblr's culture over the years. In particular, how there used to be a much more vibrant and fun practice of sending asks to each other (whether it was numbers or symbols based on a list of questions someone reblogged, participating with someone's fandom-based and roleplay-driven ask blog, copy-pasted bits of positivity and encouragement, and so on). These posts always made me feel a bit nostalgic. I would think, "Yeah, I miss those days, too. Wish they would come back ..."

Second, was a desire to find something I can actually do to make the world a little bit better. You may have noticed that things aren't particularly fantastic on this planet right now (what with several active genocides, extreme weather disasters driven by manmade climate change, pollution and extermination and deforestation ravaging nature, a rise in rightwing ideologies across the globe leading to a resurgence in violent prejudices, mega-corporate exploitation causing the quality and length of life to decrease, AND studios keep canceling all the good shows while streaming services delete them). But I am only one man living below the poverty line. Which begged the question of what I really could actually do.

Third, numerous people in my life remark fairly frequently that I'm a funny, thought-provoking guy (why, yes, I shall toot my own horn, thank you kindly for the invitation to go off on an extended, jazz solo). That I've a talent for making others laugh and giving them something interesting or creative or even profound to consider.

Then one day (186 days ago, to be precise--I know with precision because I've kept a list of all the SGTs I've posed, and have managed to keep SGT running consecutively since then), all these synapses fired at the same time. And the ideas clicked together:

Tumblr wasn't going to change back on its own, and as they say, "Change starts with me." I had to be the change I wanted to see in the Tumblr world by sending asks myself (a bit like if you want to see more people reblogging art and commenting on fics and all that, you have to make sure you're doing it, too). Something I could actually do in the face of so much doom and gloom in the world was to use my talent for humor and profundity to spread some light-hearted, mind-engaging fun. At least in my own little corner of the world, as far out as I can reach. Like a single ray sunshine on a cloudy day, it might not change the overall weather, but at least it might make things a bit more bearable emotionally in the meantime for those who see it. It's a little thing, perhaps inconsequential ... but then again, perhaps not so inconsequential for the people who feel they have nothing. After all, we're a species that uses little things to survive hard times.

What is hope if not a little thing?

ANYWHO! For specific asks, inspiration comes from anything and everything. Whatever sparks an idea, I'll immediately try to make note of it to use later. It certainly helps that I not only can be silly with it, but am indeed striving to be silly with it. For silliness has infinite variety. That's why it might just save humankind.

Thanks again for the ask! And if you like the idea, feel free to take part in it. Copy-paste the question and ask others who you think might enjoy it, too. I certainly won't object to this rippling outward. Or send ones that you think up yourself. Why the heck not? Everybody could use some more light-hearted fun, right?

[turquoisetuber]

headcanon time!

today playing rtdl with my little brother i noticed the halcandra dees had masks on just like magolor does (and while other enemies do not, they are also not halcandra exclusive)

so.. why?

i believe its because of halcandra's pollution—it is extremely mechanized, which provides reason to believe the air there isn't exactly clean, let alone the fact that the planet is BUILT UPON A VOLCANO.

with a mix of manmade air pollution due to the burning of fuels and natural air pollution due to sulfur and ash and smoke, it may be unsafe to breathe Halcandran air in for a lifetime!

i was always curious about why a Halcandran like Mags would be wearing such a heavy scarf on such a hot planet, but.. this makes sense! And perhaps the heat is something Halcandrans have evolved to tolerate so they can wear heavier clothing to protect their lungs!

again, this is just me spitballing some headcanons out, so share what you think if youd like <3

[joshhhhhhhhhhhhhhh]

Where do you want to go in the context of taking photos the most?

You've set me up with one of the hardest questions you've yet asked because the thing is I don't think there's enough time in my lifespan to visit all the places I'd want to photograph. Fundamentally I've not been into photography very long and pretty much every single place I've been able to aesthetically appreciate in that time is just Scotland, particularly Scottish cities but occasionally more natural places - the Hermitage was absolutely beautiful. To that end I really would take anywhere, because there's enough beauty both natural and manmade in this earth and even interesting compositions to be found in more desolate locations to where I think I would be enjoying myself regardless. It's all types of nature or architecture that I've never had the chance to experience in person and which I'd love to photograph myself. Moreover the world is shockingly geographically and architecturally diverse, photographing Spain would be so different than photographing France, Asia as a continent is almost cheating with its sheer size and you're seeing completely different sights from the mainland to the islands, fucking Antarctica exists and is as alien as the planet gets. And it's all just so fucking cool! I want to take photos of all of it Bando, I want to see every corner of the world through a camera lens. I can probably narrow it down to like 5 that aren't in order and some are more specific than others.

The island of Mykonos in Greece, with its beautiful white streets.

Japan's in there, it was always gonna be.

Any sort of tropical archipelago, you're really just picking between the Carribean and a lot of what Southeast Asia has on offer.

Antarctica, probably during its Spring and Summer seasons where things thaw a little bit and you can see centuries-old rock and earth.

This isn't even so much for photography even though you could get a good photo but I want the most remote and light-pollution free spot of the ocean during a perfectly clear night. Yes you could take a banger long exposure shot there but I'd really just want to see the night sky for myself.

All in all the world is beautiful and I want to travel it so so so so so bad.

[entities-of-posts]

I just read through your theories on the Dull, pretty interesting

If the Extinction split off from the End, do you think the Dull would have split off from the Lonely?

Also I know you made the Dull as a way to give the Extinction an antithesis, but I would argue that the Flesh is already that- circuitry versus meat, technology replacing flesh versus the horror of flesh itself

I think that’s an overly simplistic way of looking at how new Fears emerge. They don’t split off from a single Entity, but from several, merging together loose pieces that didn’t quite fit, dwelling in uncomfortable overlaps, as a phenomenon that used to occupy too small a place in the collective unconscious to exist independently grows to need its own place in the pantheon.

The Flesh, for example, took mainly after the Hunt, the Slaughter, and the Stranger. The Extinction takes mainly after the End and the Desolation, with some nonzero influence from the Corruption, the Stranger and the Flesh. The Dull would pull from the Lonely, the Web, the Buried, the Stranger and the Spiral.

Notice how I consider the Flesh an influence in the Extinction; I don’t believe they are opposites at all. The fear of nonconsensual body modification, pollution causing mutations, plastic in our bloodstream, and an unholy mix of meat and metal are all a harmonious marriage of the two. Besides, the Flesh is, after all, a manmade horror in itself. I also don’t believe they hold the proper narrative parallels to be considered mirrors.

You may look at this list and think to yourself “hey, everyone is stealing from the Stranger!” and this is true; the Flesh took body dysmorphia from it, the Extinction the concept of an alien evolution of life and especially humanity, and the Dull would co-opt that specific unease of the generic so common in American suburbs. But that is because the Stranger is quite an expansive Entity, taking in a lot of stray undefined “creepiness” and things that just feel Wrong. Over time, some of those things end up finding more fitting homes. But all of those concepts can still be considered Stranger-adjacent, sitting in the overlap.

[princessfaerygia]

I wish to socialize with gentle others in my life time, others who never raise their voices in anger or vehemently insult. I wish others to be patient and gentle and silent, quiet for me, alongside me, with me and for each other, including me.

We are each hurting and yearning inside somehow.

Why does it sometimes seem like certain others while shopping, havent experienced pain in life? Do their souls still have a yearning for deeper and softer healing?

When I used to work at a beauty supply store sometimes females would come in, so innocent as if they'd never been hurt. I may not experience that myself probably, but maybe one day my pain will wash away into comfy contented days and perfectly restful nights.

I love men. I love women. I love ourselves, humanity and nature intermingling. I love myself. Walking in the night I see a star but I'm nearly certain instead of a star it's a manmade spacecraft. Pity there is so much light pollution and pollution generally~we rarely see many stars.

I find the darkness soothing and the cool chill in the air refreshing. I love men. I love women. I am a woman human. I wish we will all tune in spiritually and into inner peace~creating outer peace and interdependence with earth and each other.

Sometimes I cry so hard and deeply I imagine I'm crying from spiritual and emotional pain much like a war torn individual. It's a relief for me to cry but can we begin to intellectually and spiritually care about the ones going through it? Or am I alone in the universe? All one. Alone.

Life doesn't need to make cents, we need to use our senses tuning into the vibration of all living creatures and rocks. I am anti money anti cash and pro free housing and healthy food & water for every human. I am anti man-made electricity. I am anti cars.

I am human. I walk. I write. I sense. I feel. So do you. Please be gentle and quiet. Write if you feel inclined. But solemn silence is due. For real, for always.

[strixcattus]

Miscellaneous Other Birds

...I'm counting sixteen. No, that one doesn't count, there's still only sixteen.

Following Silverhart's lead, I've left off the names on the initial image so you can guess which is which—some I feel are rather obvious and others rather not. Under the cut I'll put the version with every bird labelled.

Some birds have inspiration from existing birds. A few have very direct inspiration, in that I had a bird field guide with me while drawing and, in the case the bestiary entry didn't spark anything solid, would open it to a random page and use whatever it was as inspiration or reference. I don't remember most of these.

Now, let's buckle in for:

Rapid-Fire Birdbuilding

The Tluftasong

The Tluftasong is a nocturnal bird native to Eastern Europe. It bears strong resemblance to an owl, though it is unrelated. It is roughly seven inches from bill to tailtip, and has sooty grey feathers.

A Tluftasong eats insects and nests in hollows and in the eaves of abandoned buildings. Its pupils are extremely dilated, and are unable to significantly change size. Because of this, Tluftasongs cannot safely open their eyes during daylight and are severely impacted by light pollution.

The Lokfotreag

The Lokfotreag is a bird found only in Scotland. Its body is covered in shaggy brown feathers, save for its head, which is bald, save for a bright red crest of feathers. It is incapable of long-distance flight, and primarily eats corpses.

(My intention with this one was to take "turkey vulture" a bit too literally, but it doesn't look very much like an actual turkey.)

The Hurrashbeg

The Hurrashbeg is a kind of corvid native to Ireland. Its feathers are mainly black, though the tips of its wings and tail and the top of its head are white. It is capable of mimicking sounds, though not as well as a parrot or raven, and is noted for doing so incredibly often.

The Konchilkuk

The Konchilkuk is a kind of woodpecker found in Southeast Asia. It is very easily identified as its body is covered in black-and-orange stripes.

The Wobrahfmet

The Wobrahfmet is a black bird found in all of Europe except for southern Europe. Its head is a slightly lighter shade than the rest of its body. It is not picky in its choice of food, and will dine on plants, insects, and corpses alike, and it makes a loud croaking call that can be heard from an impressive distance.

The Hrongnewit

The Hrongnewit is a small bird of prey—a foot in length at most—found throughout all of Europe except for northern Europe. Its feathers are a sandy brown, with a darker body than head and paler feathers on the undersides of its wings and the tip of its tail. It likes to prey on the chicks of domestic birds, if they are left unattended.

The Klomurgrae

The Klomurgrae is a shorebird native to the Midwestern and Northeastern United States. Its feathers are black with white stripes, and its head is bald. Much of its diet consists of washed-up corpses, though it will also dig in the sand for living invertebrates.

The Zagsmenrok

The Zagsmenrok is a tiny bird, four inches in length. It eats mainly seeds. There are two species of Zagsmenrok—one is found throughout almost all of Europe, and is black with a white beak, and the other is found only in Greece, and is white with a black beak.

(This one was based on a chimney swift! Got lucky with the bird book there—not sure what I'd have done if I'd landed on a duck or something.)

The Hreakgleav

The Hreakgleav is a bird native to Russia. It is covered in shaggy grey feathers, and makes a low croaking call. They are frequently seen nesting in manmade structures. They are omnivorous and will eat anything they can find, from seeds to corpses to small living animals to human garbage.

The Wahrembeag

The Wahrembeag is a songbird found throughout the United States and Canada. It is blue-grey in color, with white feathers along its wings, and it eats mainly insects. It is known for singing particularly loudly just before dawn year-round, and remaining silent the rest of the day when not in its spring mating season.

The Sarbrufeat

The Sarbrufeat is a bird of prey found mainly in Canada and the northern United States. Males of the species have white feathers with grey bands on their legs, while females have mottled grey feathers with white stripes on their chest and legs.

The Keltrumram

The Keltrumram is a waterbird found in the southern United States. It is known locally as the "fool's eagle" because the white plumage on its head causes some to mistake it for a bald eagle. It eats fish.

(I think I remember what this bird is, from the "eagle" week... so I designed something that might plausibly be mistaken for either bird. Assuming I remember right.)

The Grozfarwat

The Grozfarwat is a bird with blue-grey feathers and a broad wingspan. Its head is a brighter shade of blue, and it eats seeds, small fish, and invertebrates. Grozfarwats are known for migrating across the Atlantic Ocean, from Europe to South America.

The Mortelgeng

The Mortelgeng is a bird native to the Midwestern United States and parts of Canada. It is brown in color, with a grey underbelly and bright red spots on its face—for males, they encircle their eyes, and for females they are found only in the outside corners of their eyes. They eat insects and grain, and make a whistling call.

(This is probably my favourite of the birds. The Hurrashbeg and Grozfarwat are both vying for second.)

The Burngraega

The Burngraega is a bird found through Europe, particularly northern Europe. It has pure white feathers and a long neck, and lives near water. Burngraegas mainly eat fish and invertebrates.

The Klethghrom

The Klethghrom is a bird found mainly in Brazil. Its feathers are mainly green, with a dark blue chest, and the undersides of its wings are grey with rose-colored streaks. Its tail is long and dark, with dark blue-and-pink eyespots. It makes a cooing noise, and eats all manner of plant parts.