#talking animal stories

[lepurcinus]

Probably the strangest take I ever read about Watership Down was:

"Someone made a story about rabbit which he gave emotions to, but claims to accept controlling them (here it means when Adams said he accepted that rabbits could become a problem), made them suffer just to entertain the evil viewer with their suffering."

Man, what the fuck? Nobody enjoys the violent scenes in Watership Down, at least not in a sense of pleasure or fun. It's like the main reason why people dismiss the story as violent or scary. The descriptions are meant to make you feel pity and pain for them, to make you understand them. I don't understand what the hell you were getting at with that.

Anyway, no one, not me or anyone else can know how animals would really think or react to their environment if they could think or feel the same way we do. It's all a subjective view, subject to an author's own ideas.

If they are anthropomorphized, it is in many cases so that you can better understand them as if you were in their shoes, I think xenofiction is one of the best ways to make you see empathy towards animals, although certainly those that try to see it in a more focused way in a real view of a non-human being without going so much to sentimentalism are more powerful. Those that add emotions are the ones that open that window the best.

On the other hand, that you do any of this but are in favor of things that involve "harming" an animal (let's ignore whatever ethics there are in this because by the same token these people don't do it) like hunting game or the meat industry. It is not easily "discarding" the life of another living being. It is knowing how to separate fact from fiction and that the world is much more complicated than it seems.

You can love rabbits and still be okay with them being hunted by people. Because one can know that in many places these animals have no natural control that allows things to flow well. Killing an Australian rabbit means giving other mammals and birds a chance to live after the mess man made. But it does not mean not appreciating the life of the rabbit, it does not seek to torture or make the rabbit less.

What it does is that you SEE THE RABBIT AS A SENTIMENTAL BEING AND THEN LOOK FOR A WAY NOT TO CAUSE IT LONG TERM HARM WHEN A CONTROL IS MADE.

Probably these animal stories are the best proof and love letter of humanity towards the beings that live with them, some of them simply denote the author's LOVE AND PASSION towards nature and what is in it.

Anna Sewell was grateful to the horses for helping her and so she made them a story that was one of the pillars for animal rights.

Ernest Thompson Seton was a hunter, but when he met Lobo he never wanted to hunt a wolf again in his life and in his later works he showed his aversion to the hunting of his time.

Felix Salten was a hunter, but his novel brought about one of the pillars for legal hunting as we know it.

Richard Adams claimed to agree to control rabbits, but when what was written in his work was to become reality, he protested. When his work of two dogs suffering at human hands ended in an ambiguous and tragic ending he was not satisfied and changed it to one where a man who loves them made them happy forever.

Don't let them be dismissed so easily people, if you succeed, your work is all the reflection of who you are, your intentions in the most honest way. Let that message come through, however you can, let that reflection be noticed.

God, I should stop worrying about the opinions of unknown people on the internet. I'm still frustrated Yes? This might be understood for the shit but you know I'm not good at explaining things.

[happyheidi]

deer walks into a store and later brings her whole family for another visit 🛒

Horsetooth Store, Gas, and RV Park

(via)

[egophiliac]

CROWLEY SSR THOUGHTS

there is zero basis for this, but I can't get this thought of my head

I don't know why I decided to draw it this way

[bixels]

Messy Trixie Charleston dance roughs.

[huachengslastbraincell]

[thedramaticduke]

Disney: Yeah, sorryy, we don't know how to make villains without queercoding them and people didn't like the twist-villains, so we stopped making them alltogether :( I hope you like 3593 intergenerational family-traumas!

Dreamworks, while creating not one, not two, but three amazing villains: Pathetic

[blackkatdraws2]

The Main Character.

[Blank Scripts AU]

[piplupcola]

Writers trying to convince Disney execs not to cancel Nimona, Owl House, and many other IPs:

It's almost laughable how ironic this scene is with what a dumpster fire Wish turned out to be

[ddjstar]

Them: you better not be cunty Adam Faulkner babysitting cutie patootie Diana Gordon when i get there

My goofy ass:

[click for better resolution]

[skitskatdacat63]

2023 Qatar Grand Prix - Sprint - Oscar Piastri

[lepurcinus]

The saddest part of the big mayority of xenofiction being based on the UK is that it is just the example of the place with the greatest loss of biodiversity and ecological disaster. You can be sure that many of the animals that appear in these stories are either not from there or today are in danger of extinction.

Well, this actually goes for great part of europe

[fatedtime]

I know there’s a lot of people talking about the culture conflict between Toshiro and Laios, but I think it’s important to acknowledge the class conflict between them too. Mayor’s child or not, Laios is still from the boonies, while Toshiro is waited on hand and foot by a flock of women his family employs to serve his needs. This has 100% stifled Toshiro’s ability to communicate with others, to the point where acknowledging his retainers and thanking them for their efforts is shown as a huge point of growth.

Meanwhile, Laios’s bumbling nature towards Toshiro’s boundaries is very much informed by his lack of knowledge of other people and places. He knows how much it hurt him to see his sister rejected by people whose insular attitudes made her powers frightening to them, so he tries to express overtures of friendship towards Toshiro by being so interested in him that it comes off as frightening instead. While he means well, his lack of knowledge on how to interact with people who are different from him puts Toshiro in a weird spot, and this lack of knowledge isn’t just the autism — it’s where he was born and raised. And it’s something real kids from rural areas go through when they enter more urban spaces. The sorts of social manners that are appropriate there aren’t appropriate elsewhere, and they get seen as… well. Inelegant. Pushy.

If Laios had gotten Hien’s name wrong, she would have decked him. But because it was Toshiro, whose upbringing didn’t give him any conflict resolution skills (because he’s around people who have to bend to his needs*) he doesn’t know how to sort things out with Laios, and grows to resent him. It’s not just the culture, it’s the place he occupies class-wise.

That’s part of why I love Toshiro’s arc — if this was just a culture conflict where Laios commits microagressions against him, as I’ve mostly seen it put, him ultimately learning a lesson would be pretty weird. But it’s not. His upbringing as a noble lord’s son in a BONKERS family has given him certain issues… and Laios helps him confront that, so he can live without regrets.

(*please note, this is a massive oversimplification of what the hell is going on with Toshiro Nakamoto. i just didn't want to write a book.)

[egophiliac]

(almost) four years in, and I finally had time to draw something for the anniversary! woo! 🎉🎉🎉

[ridragon]

Genuine question. Have you people ever actually seen hazbin or helluva or do you just fucking bitch about it because it's the trend to do. Like. Helluva has kinda shit first few episodes that are way over the top with sex jokes, but it gets better when it gets to the actual story and they cool it. I bet no on complaining has seen it

[arcanegifs]

Favorite Arcane Scenes: 5/? ↳ "Let's be plain, then. He's slipping. The undercity's devolving to chaos. And somehow, I get the feeling he isn't up there balancing booksheets. Jinx gets a whim, suddenly his spine's made of jelly. And here you are, shoveling his shit. Ego is one thing, brain's another. You aren't the only one dissatisfied with his performance. There's bigger fish than Silco."

[krashlite]

Part 2 of how I think the curses work

Part 1 , Part 2 (you are Here!)