#but what happened to flight

[throwntotheair]

Of fucking course, the Mayor is Freeze! Elias - with his huge hunk of self doubt, who notices the crazy things going on around this project, who WAITS UNTIL THE LAST MINUTE to say something because he was having a literal ANALYSIS PARALYSIS - of course that guy would be guided primarily by the flight instinct when it comes to responding to stress.

[brainrotcharacters]

the man trained by the shimotsuki since childhood, the mind behind the three sword style, the demon pirate hunter, vice captain of the Strawhat Pirates,

easily stopped with a hand on his shoulder by his captain (currently in a silly hungry vibe)

[funkily]

these 10 seconds have changed my brain chemisty like nothing else

transcript:

Pix: Scott!

Scott: (distant) So I think I have - Oh! Um... hello?

Pix: Hey.

Scott: Hellooo? Hi!

Pix: Come out here. We need to talk.

Scott: Talk about what?

Pix: I think -

Scott: How are you? You look dashing today.

Pix: Uh, that's... neither here nor there.

[greatpistachiopie]

it's mentopolis finale day!! i'll hate to see you go stacy fakename

[mythicalviper-fr]

Have I been on this site for almost nine years? Yes. Am I aware that ridgebacks are canonically hydrophobic? Yes. Will it stop me from drawing them as merdragons? no.

I decided to do my own mermay challenge where I turn a ridge into a mermaid every day, to practice painting and because I can.

—

May 1 - Goldfish Ridgeback

Despite its delicate appearance, these ridgebacks can thrive in the most life-aversive environments. With enough space, they can grow to massive sizes. Original ancestors of these ridgebacks sport bright orange scales, but many of the newer generation have taken on brown and gray colors to better blend in.

[rhvpsodos-fr]

anotha one!

(DTDAY for lostplanetvoltia#178385)

[a-dinosaur-a-day]

for the purposes of having multiple options for the poll, I am assuming dinosaurs evolved powered flight three times. this may be incorrect, but it hasn't been proven wrong yet, so...

[one-time-i-dreamt]

Marvel added a new superhero to the MCU called Flightless Bird Man. His power was turning into any flightless bird.

[stories-in-the-wind]

At the edge of the Starwood

[blorbodiaz]

so change your mind

and say you're mine

don't leave tonight

stay

- stay, hurts

[carnivalcarriondiscarded]

rest in peace lizard webbedsite....

[korokonas]

They’ve been on strike ever since

[b4kuch1n]

about ready

[mycological-mariner]

Listen. Sword fights are always flirtatious. You can be the most straight-laced person in the world but as soon as you make eye contact with your opponent, you’re going to give them a cheeky little wink and they’re going to blow you a kiss and then you have to try and kill each other. That’s just how it is, I don’t make the rules

[bakathief]

„On our way to the US someone was killed in a toilet cabin of the plane but my best friend of who is still in high school solved it, because I explained to him how bras work. When we arrived in NY my friend‘s mom did some crazy stunt that had her oldtimer only drive on 2 wheels for a while while my friend used that opportunity to drag me halfway through an window of a moving car at high speed. However, just when we thought the police caught that crazy stunt it turned out the police inspector was an actress, perfectly disguised as the police chief. Crazy! Then we went to the play at night and after witnessing some private drama I almost got smashed by stage equipment. That was something. Then it was time for the play but the lead actor got shot midair so the play got stopped and my friend got to solve another murder case.

Anyway, on our way home we got almost assaulted by a different serial killer we ran into but he spared us because we saved his life. I passed out somewhere along the way because of a fever.“

— Ran Mouri telling her family about her first trip to the US

[pestilentbrood]

VERY long Ramble incoming

honestly now that I'm looking at the auraboa lore situation, I'm just disappointed. There was such POTENTIAL in the idea of the Loop and the horror of a new generation inexplicably being disconnected from it, forcing the newly hatched children into a world totally separate from that perceived by their parents (I mean, hell, they perceive TIME differently!).... but then the writer(s?) just fell ass backwards into Icky Tropes.

I feel like I can see what the idea was, especially with the recent alterations to the Encyclopedia entry... It seems like staff fundamentally understands the true Horror potential here, but... Instead, through the short story, they proposed it through the lens of a condescending outsider character, turning the fears of the older generation into something trivial. And also weirdly demeaning the Auroboa's situation by portraying them as overreacting.

Why... why would you do that? Like, from a storytelling perspective? What's gained from that? Why not embrace the true horror and even Emotional significance of that disruption? Why instead go for "ohh we NEED outsider help we NEED to be saved because we are so helpless and it is so Silly that we, creatures who have never experienced such things, do not know what sleep is"????

And if they WANTED to have a condescending outsider, I feel like they COULD have done that, but it would have to have that character realize the horror at some point. And make it obvious that their attitude towards distressed parents and children facing Eldritch Shit and the Sudden Deconstruction of it was not cool!

(or at the very least be a bit more...idk. Consistent with said outsider character? Juniper just goes from "omg I am so honored that the fascinating creatures of the behemoth have chosen me to speak to" to "oh their wasting my time because they don't know what sleep is. I'd rather be sleeping!! 🙄" like girl... c'mon now. Why are we trivializing it like this. Do you want me as the reader to be invested in their plight or not.)

I mean come on. They're beings connected through one networked hivemind-like system, yet each still maintains a silver of individuality that allows them to move freely throughout the Behemoth that they care for. And they've got an eldritch understanding of time that no other dragon could understand. They're seeing the future, past, and present unfold simultaneously. They're witnessing the birth and death of the world at the same time, and have no way to communicate it to other dragons. The best they can do is maintain their home, and even then, they see its roots spread and decay all at once.

And then the newest generation is suddenly disconnected. An inherent link between parent and child and all dragons in-between, that has existed since the creation of their species, is just suddenly GONE for the newest births. With NO explanation for it. The children have no easy way of communicating with their parents. The children are experiencing time in a way that was not meant for their species. They've forcefully been shoved into a circadian rhythm that they are Not! Built for!

The only way a parent could communicate properly with their child would be when the latter is sleeping, something that is also completely foreign to this species. It would be terrifying for all involved!!!

They are literally experiencing eldritch horror from the perspective of the eldritch being forced into the mortal.

Like why WOULDN'T there be panic!!! And why would that panic be trivialized! Why are we only shown the perspective of an outsider who looks at this situation and goes "Oh the silly tree beasts are being so silly over nothing, it's no big deal!"

That and the way the auraboas talk to outsiders. Like. There was such potential there. Real opportunity to explore how ancient, time-bending beings would communicate to someone who couldn't even BEGIN to understand the intricacies of it.

Instead we got what feels more like baby talk (even described as though they were hatchlings enunciating their first words, which... I dunno man, maybe we don't want to compare them to children like That) and less like... Beings that experience all of time at once. I mean, the hatchlings and the adults speak the exact same way, and that doesn't make any sense given the literal time barrier going on.

I totally get why people thought there was just a language barrier and that auraboas had their own language, thus causing the disjointed speak, and not that it was because They Do Not Experience Time Like We Do. And I feel it would've been far easier to get it across by just... I dunno. Do anything else?? I saw someone on here suggest they speak in the "wrong" tenses, or using multiple tenses in the same sentence, which I think would've been far more clear.

Like, as opposed to "saplings wilt! saplings silent!" just "the saplings will wilt in silence, they've wilted in silence, they are wilting silently." Said all at once like all things are true simultaneously. And if we're going for hivemind, have each auraboa speak in a different tense, all at the same time, and have them switch it up every time. Have our outsider get confused and be like "which is it? are they wilting now, or have they already wilted?" and the cluster of auraboas respond in a cacophony of yes's, no's, and maybe's all at once.

Would've probably gotten across the "alien" vibe they were supposedly going for far better than wide-eyed desperation for an outsider's guidance conveyed through disjointed, in-world described as baby speech.

And also maybe would've had less accidental connotations. Because as it stands, I completely see why people have made the connections to the real world where they have. This doesn't read like eldritch timey-wimey intrigue, or even a respectful look at how younger generations can become detached from their families' cultures over time and the struggles that come with it. It reads like a culture being perceived by an ignorant outsider who (despite supposedly respecting these dragons) scoffs and rolls their eyes because the tree beasts with their funny words are being silly again, and that Hey, isn't it actually a great thing that the children are fundamentally different in all manners now? Because now they can join the rest of us in the "real world."

Yknow. Ick.

(I Personally think it would've been better to have the perspective be one of the Auraboas themselves, especially one of the children, to really understand what was going on here. Give us the full brunt of the mind of a creature experiencing all of time interwoven as one shape. The waters fall and the oceans crash with waves. They've now fallen to drought. The ocean has yet to be born. Caves have been carved out through the waters' currents. And when I break from this timeline, I open my eyes to see a child, the child not yet born, the child born now, the child born yesterday. Why can't I hear it? Why couldn't I hear it? Why won't I ever hear it?)

I dunno. People more qualified than me to speak on this matter have already torn the lore apart, I'm just... dropping my own two cents. Potential got weirdly squandered and we ended up instead with unfortunate implications and tropes that could be connected a liiiittle too awkwardly to irl situations.

*Also, before anyone points out: Yes, I know the hatchlings aren't COMPLETELY detached from the Loop and can join it when they sleep. But the fact is, these thangs never had to sleep before. That wasn't in their species' nature. So that's still weird and foreign for them on both sides. And since the hatchlings now have a circadian rhythm, they can't stay connected to the loop permanently. And also Also, seeing as the previous generations aren't experiencing time linearly, who's to say they even recognize when their child joins the loop? They'll speak with an echo of their child when that child was last asleep ages ago, not knowing that it's not them presently, because there is no 'present' for the older generations.