#marsupial ramblings

[marsupialmenace]

I'm rereading Jason's Batman Post-Crisis appearances for 'reasons' and got sucked into rereading the entirety Batman Year One last night and I really love how catty Alfred is to Bruce. Like, yes, sass that Batman-child. Every time Bruce tries to display 'autonomy' or act like an adult or show that he's a big bad hero, Alfred is just "*sigh* I guess you'll be going out as a Bat again, sir."

Like, this bit, where Bruce is so sly about Alfred's joking suggestion:

Cut to three pages later:

Then this whole interaction between them the next morning is perfection. I could not stop cackling throughout the entirety of reading the book.

I love and need more of this catty relationship in my life. (I also loved it in Nightwing Year One too). Alfred is just permanently done with Bruce's shit and this is becoming my favourite thing in my reread of these comics.

Batman Year One is just so good, hilarious and the wet cat energy is very entertaining. *chef's kiss*

Panels from Batman #407

[dwarvendiaries]

Wombats are better than Koalas

Koalas

Adorable

Big fluffy ears

Feed their joeys their fæces

Live in trees

Wombats

Super cute

Round

Have cube-shaped poops

Live underground

[crazypossumman]

Once I told a coworker that I really liked possums, and she told me that they were gross. The next day I wore a possum shirt to work (I have like 4 so I didn’t even really think about it), and she said, “Oh. I didn’t think that when you said you like possums it was, like, a personality trait.” It was hilarious, but god damn take it easy with my fragile possum-loving psyche.

[beans-in-your-socks]

M for the random letter

mmmmk

my cat. great guy.

marsupials. no further explanation is needed.

Muriel. obviously.

mugs. love mugs. great invention mugs.

Madilyn Mei. her music is amazing.

Michael sheen. duh. one of the funniest people on the planet.

mushrooms! not to eat, just cause they're rlly cool from a scientific perspective.

[arolesbianism]

I like to imagine that every universe in oni one inevitably ends similarly, with the universe destroyed and Olivia printing podding herself, but I think it'd be funny if each universe was like wildly different to the point that it seems completely impossible for it to end the same way and yet somehow Jackie always kinda ends the world and Olivia ends up in that damn pod. Just jock universe where them and all the scientists are super into sports and Jackie and Olivia still made the infinite power source and printing pods anyways for idk. More sports. Baking universe where it was all just a really dramatic series finale for a baking show that no one knew was going to be the series finale until most of the contestants are dead and all of the producers are too. Young universe where they simply made their progress faster and still hired all the same people somehow despite most of them being like 10. Sit com universe where Jackie and Olivia never even become scientists they just work some desk job they just happen to create all the same stuff through a comedy of errors and end the world. Robot universe where they were all already robots but Olivia decided to double robot herself anyways. The possibilities are endless

[aeriona]

Thinking about my silly kangaroo people again…

Speculative rambling below the cut

I originally designed Frenators (way back when) to have both mammalian and vaguely reptilian traits, but I've since backpedaled on that and instead made them marsupials because I think it's cool. It also means I had to rethink their body plan to more resemble something you could plausibly classify as kangaroo-like. Thus, big flat feet and pouches it is!

I'm not sure how long they would keep joeys in the pouch for, given their devellopment cycle is slower than a real roo I would probably estimate pouch-time to be around 2-3 years. The pouch would also serve as a good way to keep young warm in the freezing cold Snowfield temperatures, so that'd also probably encourage them to stay in there longer.

The skeleton is a horrible Frankenstein's monster combination between a human and kangaroo skeleton, modified slightly to facilitate quadrupedal walking and running to the best of my knowledge as I'm not an osteologist. The pelvis looks really off to me, but who knows I'm not bothered to fix it right now.

[rubydracogirl]

Hey guess what? Time for another talk about Stanley Pines. I have not looked to see if anyone else made this connection, so, if I'm just repeating something that's already been established, please disregard 🤣

Anyways, I was thinking about Stan's pet possum, Shanklin, from the 'Lost Legends' graphic novel and how funny it was that he had a possum as a pet, of all things. I also thought it was very interesting how Shanklin is mentioned in the preview of The Book Of Bill (Stan drew a picture of a possum with a knife tied to its back, that has to be a reference to Shanklin). While I was thinking about this, it occurred to me that it's a strange detail for Stan to have a possum as a childhood pet.

Don't get me wrong, having any kind of undomesticated animal as a pet is pretty wild, but I think possums are generally more loathed than other critters? (That's just conjecture since I've heard possums get called ugly while racoons are cute.) Plus, I don't know, that just seemed like a strange choice for Stan.

Myself, I love possums. They're shy, they eat SO MANY TICKS HELL YEAH (fuck ticks, I hate ticks), they're North America's only marsupial which is very neat, they're practically immune to rabies and they do that thing where they play dead.

And who faked their death for thirty years?

Stanley.

When this crossed my mind, I had a moment of like 'hold on a second' because it suddenly struck me that Stanley's possum might be more than just a quirky pet.

Please bear in mind that this is all just speculation on my part 😅

So what kind of guy is Stanley? He's actually not an aggressive person at heart. In Dreamscaperers, when he talks to Soos about what he was like as a kid, he describes himself as weak until boxing lessons toughened him up. Even so, Stanley usually only fights if someone he cares about is in trouble. (We definitely see that repeatedly when it comes to Mabel and Dipper)

When he's on his own however, it seems like his default is to bluff his way out of trouble or run, such as evading the law and Rico, amongst other instances. (I submit his repeated tactic of using smoke bombs as a distraction for his getaway.)

Possums are not aggressive animals. They hiss and growl, but that's more of a defensive display than an actual threat, and again, they play dead as a defense technique.

Now, I wanna bring up the fact that Stan tied a knife to Shanklin's back to make him an 'attack possum'. Doesn't that seem a bit symbolic considering how Stan had to make himself tough?

So, there you have it, I think Shanklin was meant to be a representation of Stanley's character.

If you made it this far, thank you for reading. Here's a meme my friend made after I talked to her about this

(You're the best, S, thank you for listening to me ramble about Stan and his possum)

[downtofragglerock]

Okay I don't want to stay with mammals for much longer so I'm gonna go through the rest of them here

There are 22 distinct groups of mammals, I've already covered three of them (Carnivora and the even and odd-toed ungulates).

Going through the remaining 19:

There are four groups of marsupials, but that doesn't matter because Rahi-wise there is only one species, the Fusa, a kangaroo. The Kikanalo might also count, but see my ungulate post for that ramble.

There are two groups of Xenarthra (armadillos, sloths, and anteaters) but there are no rahi equivalents at all.

Monotremes (echidnas and platypuses) have no representation either.

Same with Sirenia (manatees and dugongs), Lagomorphs (rabbits), Scandentia (tree shrews), Macroscelidea (elephant shrews), Erinaceidae (hedgehogs), and Afrosoricida (tenrecs and some other miscellaneous small African mammals).

Soricomorpha (shrews and moles) has one representative, the Archives Mole.

Pachyderms likewise also only have one rep, the Hapaka.

Cetaceans only have two reps, the Razor Whale and the Stinger Whale. There is a unique whale rahi in the 2003 console game, but much like with the unique fox rahi, I don't know if I can consider it canon given the nature of the game and how drastically different many canon rahi appear in it.

Chiroptera has three reps, the Cliff Screecher, the Ice Bat, and the unnamed bat rahi from the cancelled pc game and various other 01 promo renders.

There are three primates, the Brakas, a monkey, and two apes, the Lava ape and the Spiny Stone Ape. Much like with the Kavinika, I have some questions regarding if the Spiny Stone Ape is actually an ape, given that it has a tail and frankly, kind of looks like a dinosaur, but that's a discussion for another day.

Lastly, the rodents, of which there are quite a lot. There's the Gafna, the Ice Vermin, the Kinloka, the Kuma-Nui, the Lava Rat, the Stone Rat, and the Wolf Rat from the cancelled pc game. The Kuma-Nui and Wolf Rat are especially interesting considering that the former is really fucking huge, and the later engages in some interesting specevo, being a species of one group filling in the role of a species belonging to a different group.

There, that's every mammalian analogue rahi charted

[pokemon-ash-aus]

Ah, a possum... now I want to ramble about marsupials, to clarify to anyone feeling confusion due to "opossum" frequently being abbreviated to "possum".

Go for it my friend! I'd love to know more about Marsupials, especially since i know so little :3

[marsupialmenace]

Putting aside Bruce's horrific "you're the 'parents' that the family needs" dialogue (not a personal fan of that), I love that what he did to Jason was the final straw to the seeds that Zdarsky was sowing all the way back in the beginning of his run.

(There are also panels where Bruce is just wishing that his family could find the happiness he'll never have, which when put aside Gotham War where he realises he's the one causing the unrest :chefs_kiss: ugh, I'm unwell)

Panels from: Batman #129 and Batman/Catwoman: The Gotham War - Scorched Earth.

[purkinje-effect]

For August: 👀, ⌚️, 🌎

👀 Describe his overall appearance (hair and eye colour, hairstyle, any distinguishing features?). Are there any aspects of his appearance as you imagine it that you can't replicate in the in-game character creation?

There's two things I wish I could do in-game with his design.

One, I do wish that the game had physical manifestations for mutations, but I have a fuzzy approximation of what mutations he'd have at the time he lived in WV. He's always had somewhat claw-ish nails, and I'm imagining that maybe his tendency to rely on a single piece of leg armor might be due to coming down on it wrong after misjudging a Marsupial jump, then it never healed quite right. (rip) And he later develops Moira's Rad Regen, and that may have also factored into the whole thing of his leg giving him grief down the line, depending on how well that mutation can align a gnarled limb? (I could ramble a lot about how passionate he is about cultivating his mutations.)

Two, he moved to the Capital Wastes in his twenties, so he'd have been in his teens in WV, and it's pretty hard to get the looksmenu to reflect that age. I typically imagine him around eighteen.

It's complicated, though, I guess. He's pretty much a wiry beanpole at this stage in his life. Dark wavy shoulder length hair, usually pulled back in some way. Grey eyes. Roughly 5'10". (He's not Count Everest until later, lol.) I've really only got a handful of drawings of him from his WV era so far.

⌚️ How old was he when he entered the vault? Was he born in there? Or alternatively, is he from Vault 76 at all? (If not, where is he from and how did he end up in West Virginia?)

He isn't my 76er, though I do have one. He was born and raised in the Lucky Hole Mine in the 2240s. He lives his twenties in Megaton, thirties in Far Harbor, and eventually in his forties ends up between Nuka World & southern Vermont.

🌎 Does he have a favourite region of the world map (e.g. the Forest, the Ash Heap...)? A least favourite region?

I feel the Savage Divide would be his most familiar area, between his home settlement at the Lucky Hole, Emmett Disposal, and HZ-21 in particular (the latter two of which I imagine would become prime locations for Children of Atom worship, and he basically trades one cult for another once he travels).

As an appreciator of nature, I think he'd have reasons to love each region. He loves Radstag hunting in the Toxic Valley, and he's a very enthusiastic Pioneer Scout. I think the Ash Heap might be his least favorite, though, just for the smog alone, but that doesn't mean he won't make trips just to collect Ash Rose and marvel at how the Ultracite intrusions have scarred the terrain.

[imagination-confusion]

I HAD AN IDEA AND HAD TO ACT ON IT! These are critters for my Dreamscape Realm. A realm of my imagination!

These critters are marsupials that have adapted to certain environments to survive and blend in.

There are Mossy Critters, Craggy, Rocky, and even Sand Critters

And Urban Critters covered in trash and recycled materials

Some Critters even live on mountains and some develop partial wings to get across natural obstacles and to escape danger.

They're great at jumping and have large amounts of stamina and have been seen to take in other creatures that have been injured and nursing them back to health.

Critters are omnivorous with some being straight herbivores and relying on plants and berries while others can be hunters.

Critters are opportunistic by nature and take whatever they can to survive and adapt.

All Critters don't have paw pads and have feet like a rabbit.

Critters like Watterson are known as Marshland Critters and have records of staying underwater for hours at a time and they have webbed feet used to swim faster across the murky water and use that speed to catch fish.

Shroom is one of rare fungal Critters and one of the non-poisonous variety.

Scientists are still finding out why Fungal Critters exist and why they have adapted to mimic that of a common field mushroom.

And that's all I have for now!

My head is constantly nyooming and zooming and my mind can't stand still and I gotta go go go or else I'll be a failure if I stand still!

IT WAS FUN RAMBLING GOOD DAY OR NIGHT!! BYEEE!!!

[sindumpster]

Random question but i just started randomly thinking about this; how does hibernation work? Like for dragons or even other creatures like demons if they would do that as well (yes i know it would pretty much depend on your own imagination and shit but like i wanna hear your take lmao i like your rambles)

Oh pff no worries. I mention the imagination thing nearly every time as more of a disclaimer. Since yanno, with worldbuilding you can pick and choose and modify things, and as much as I love musing, I never want people the think I’m making the rules lol.

But I guess to start I’ll mention some general things about hibernation. And if you wanna skip the rundown and biology facts stuff I’ll make a separation further down with a bunch of “===”:

—The term “hibernation” is kinda complicated. It refers to an extended period of torpor, or slowing down of the metabolism (energy consumption, heart rate, breathing, etc) and lowering of body temperature to conserve energy (some can get really cold, but on average body temp drops about 5-10° Celsius/9-18°Fahrenheit). While it is kind of like a deep sleep state, it is not synonymous with sleep. Animals that hibernate still have waking and sleeping cycles. They do have to occasionally wake up, either to warm up, to defecate, drink, or even eat (though those needs vary depending on species). This waking up (called arousal) can take hours, and about 80% of the animal’s energy goes to arousal.

—Hibernation can last from days to weeks to months depending on the species. Animals that hibernate usually prepare themselves beforehand, like how bears need to put on as much fat as possible since that’s their main source of energy while hibernating.

—Hibernation is voluntary. While it is triggered by hormones as a reaction to environmental changes, animals can also choose not to hibernate, like in the case of a warm winter or abundant food.

—also, confusingly, torpor can refer to short-term metabolism slowdown and lowered body temperature. It either lasts a few hours or is part of a day-night cycle (it has to last less than 24 hours). Torpor is involuntary, and usually is part of the animal’s sleep cycle. Lots of rodents do this, along with some bats and marsupials. Hummingbirds are probably most famous examples of this, and it’s how they manage to sleep/stop eating by night and not die. And while technically not hibernation, I’m gonna include it because it’s a similar process. But note that some animals I list later undergo torpor, not hibernation.

—and in case it wasn’t confusing enough, there’s also estivation. Which is pretty much a fancy way of saying “hibernation but in really hot temperatures”. And if you’re cold-blooded, you undergo brumation. And yes, there’s some weird specifics to brumation that make it different, I’m gonna be a bitch and lump those with “hibernation” too. Also hibernation can be triggered by a lack of food or water, it isn’t always temperature or a seasonal thing. Nature is full of weird exceptions to every rule.

—Anyways I already alluded to this but “hibernation” is fairly common among mammals. Bears are probably the most famous, but lots of small mammals do it too. Like ground squirrels, chipmunks, hamsters, dormice (and many other rodents), monotremes (echidnas), hedgehogs, bats, skunks, raccoons, badgers, and many more. There’s even a species of lemur that hibernates.

—Birds do not hibernate. Many do undergo torpor though, like hummingbirds, chickadees, swifts, poorwills, nighthawks, doves, among others.

—Many reptiles and amphibians “hibernate”. Desert toads can bury themselves for years to wait for water (estivation). Many frogs hibernate underwater, but there’s also that magical antifreeze frog that decided it needed to flex and turns itself into a popsicle every winter. There’s also a decent number of salamanders and their cousins that do it too. Garter snakes “hibernate” in colonies during the winter, but most snakes are loners. Lots of tortoises “hibernate”, as do lizards.

—oh and if you thought it ended with reptiles you would be wrong. Insects do it too. Ladybugs, bees, flies, some mosquitoes, some wasps (usually the queens who repopulate the nest come spring), some beetles and many more do the hibernation. There’s even the Upis beetle which also freezes itself in order to survive the Alaskan winter. Also some arachnids like spiders “hibernate” too.

—and nope. Still doesn’t end there. The fish do it too. Not as many but koi and gobies have been observed entering a slowed metabolic state after burrowing into soft sediment. Lungfish are famous for estivation, or waiting underground for years until their water source returns. One species of Antarctic cod goes almost completely dormant during the winter, and is the closest fish equivalent to true hibernation.

=========================

TL;DR: hibernation takes many forms, but refers to a long-term slowdown of an animal’s metabolism (torpor) in response to seasonal changes (winter, dry seasons, etc) or food/water shortages. That said, hibernation and related forms of torpor are very diverse within the animal world. Mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, insects, arachnids, fish all have species that undergo some variation of torpor. Some species take it to the extreme.

So as much as I kinda hate to say it, it kinda does go along with my usual “anything goes” disclaimer where you can imagine hibernation in fantasy animals taking just about any form, be it short term torpor or extremes like allowing themselves to freeze. Hell, if you wanna make your creature as durable as a tardigrade, nature’s already given you a base to build on lol.

That said, my canon dragons do not naturally hibernate. But since I see them as magical creature which are all about body mods (allowing them to live in just about any environment), I’m sure there’s some that have altered themselves to undergo torpor or full-on hibernation (or brumation?? Whatever you call it when you’re semi-warm blooded). I reckon some would go about it like bears, and bulk up during the months prior and then go through extended torpor. Or maybe desert dragons bury themselves like the desert toad, only emerging when conditions are right. Or a dragon with an ice affinity that allows itself to freeze. You could even take it further, like what if the mythos about certain dragons awakening from stone is just another form of extreme, magically-aided hibernation. Or dragons associated with volcanoes, who go dormant for centuries only to emerge when said volcanoes erupt (like, tied to an old ramble about dragons modifying themselves to have really unconventional dietary requirements, where maybe this one feeds on lava or ash, or needs the chemicals from those poisonous gases. Or just needs extreme heat to function.)

Or you could do similar to what I do, where while my dergs do not hibernate, cold will slow them down. Partly because they’re this weird in-between of being warm and cold blooded, so lower temps make them sluggish but they can still produce some body heat. But if it gets bad enough they will eventually enter a sleep-like state (but unlike true hibernation, they can’t sustain it long-term). If they don’t find a heat source within a few days, they will expire, so it’s very much a last resort (and they will not wake up without heat). It’s an “I’m trapped out in the snow and my options are either to die within a few hours or go to sleep and slow down everything in the hopes that it either warms up or someone helps me within the next few days” level of desperation.

It’s part of the reason why Jake hates the cold. It slows him down and makes him sleepy, but also lowers his energy requirements (aka: he gains weight because if anything he eats more during the winter months, not less lol). Which also means you could totally weaponize your thermostat to fuck with him.

As for demons, I feel like they’re the ultimate extreme of “do what you want”. Nature’s rules do not apply to demons imo, though personally I still like using nature and biology as a base for how demons function. But there’s a lot that can go into it too, like what is the nature of your demons? Do they exist on the same plane or do they have their own realm? What is that realm like? Do they need to feed, and if so, on what? What happens if they don’t feed? Not to mention there’s so many types of demons, and you can just as easily make your own custom types too lol.

I feel like there’s plenty of mythos justification for it too, like stories of monsters and demons that visit during certain times of the year. Demons/monsters that emerge every X number of years, or centuries. Maybe even millennia. Or stories of demons who have gone dormant but with vague threats that they may one day wake and cause havoc again. And like dragons, how they hibernate can take on any form. It could be a short torpor when they don’t have sustenance. It can be hibernation due to the environment of earth being too harsh compared to their own realm. It could just be natural periods of dormancy. Hell, if your demons live for thousands of years, or are immortal, maybe short-term torpor is a few years. Compared to that lifespan, a year or two is a blink of an eye, even if it feels long to us.

But yeh, I guess what I’m saying is that nature does the “hibernation” in so many diverse ways that you can’t really go wrong coming up with your own version. It might already technically exist. But even if not, it’s fantasy. Have fun and go wild lol.

[solreefs]

Local disaster stunned to learn that other people do not, in fact, keep mental catalogues of every weird thing you said to them once.

[the-meme-monarch]

y’all ever say fuck it and design your own ac species

also ya i know only female possums/opossums have the pouches and the male ones dip almost immediately but fuck it Poppy and Art said good dad rights (also poppy is a water possum which are the only marsupials where the males also have pouches) also I named their kids bc I always wanted the kangaroo joeys to have names :(

[mrburnsnuclearpussy]

Oooh I’m brainstorming Trill now and so far they’re gonna be semi-aquatic ambush pack hunters with so much pretty camouflage and dexterous tendril things that are disguised as seaweed so when they’re hiding in wait in the seaweed forests they live in they can hide totally still and blend right in. They are social and naturally playful in a similar way to dolphins and just got smarter from there after they started using their dexterous barbels to hold things and develop a use for tools to catch food even more efficiently.

They look (so far) like kind of a mix between leopard seals, salamanders, and if a marsupial met a sea dragon or lion fish (but this is all rough ideas, nothing set in stone).

I haven’t developed an evolutionary reason for the symbiosis yet, but I think a cool route would be that the worms used to be a totally different species, and the two species symbiotic relationship evolved and developed for so long that they are basically one species (but not really?)

I can’t decide if they’re freshwater or salt water but I think freshwater because it would make things more practical for space travel lol