#curious sootball

[dimorphodon-x]

Happy birthday :D

Thanks!

[a-casual-egg]

Hi! For the character bingo: Silas Flint and Edie Valentine, please ^_^

Hiii Sootball!

Silas Flint

Edie Valentine

I love these two sm

[sanctus-ingenium]

i answer your asks vol... 6?

This one made me actually consider how they balance the humours beyond just a simply "they scour it out". Because sometimes a holy beast gets 'sick' and it's not necessarily related to any sort of tissue growth, it's more often a mechanical fault and because the beast is considered to be alive, he is then therefore 'sick'. So how do we deal with this? An enginesmith will make the necessary repairs, but sometimes the sickness is related to environmental conditions. The four humours are arranged on a scale like this:

A mechanical fault associated with being too hot and dry could be something like a lack of lubrication on moving machine parts. So this would be considered the reason for a production of yellow bile (excess of yellow bile, btw, was what Pantera was diagnosed with on his last outing). Whether or not the bile is literal or more symbolic depends on the case. Anyway this was the reason Pantera is associated with fire (originally, when I was designing them all) and Leun, diametrically opposite, is associated with phlegm, water, acid, etc.

But anyway, the way to fix these imbalances in hot/cold/wet/dry is to simply reduce whichever one is excessive. In practice, keeping holy beasts maintained even when they're not out on a crusade is a full time job for an army of workers, where the atmospheric conditions need to be as neutral as possible. Too wet and you've got rust, too dry and the metal fatigues, to hot and it might warp and break, too cold and the joints won't fit properly, etc etc. Although the enginesmiths view this through a lens of The Four Humours, it's also just good practice to try to keep things balanced.

Btw while they do cure an excess of blood by bleeding the holy beast, they don't make leeches big enough :'(

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There are illustrated representations of dragons that are pretty traditionally dragony (typically a winged serpent with many tails representing the stinging tendrils). These are added to drawings and art as a catch-all symbol for a conscious and targeted Evil. The laity, which is very devout, is unlikely to associate dragons with resistance - dragons cause a lot of damage too, and those stinging barbs will kill you just from the trauma of the impalement before the venom even has a chance to (unless you just get grazed, in which case.. the venom will paralyse you. then kill you)

So active rebellions/civil wars/wars of succession have occurred many times. The subjugated Midaean nation/territory (depending on who you ask) rallies around their beloved Saint Lycaon, a wolf. Flags and signs depicting a wolf devouring a crocodile/a lion/whatever holy beast currently tops the hierarchy of the church would be more likely. Rebellion itself is rarely black and white and as neat as picking a symbol the church hates. It is more likely people would pick a symbol that they love. Outside of Midea, the Mezian empire might not be at its peak but it also has not given its own citizens and laity a reason to take up arms against it.

at the start of the story, at least

-

awesome questions thank you @curious-sootball !

So the nerve cords inside the vertebrae are artificial, but they still perform the same physiological function as a real spinal column. They interface with a knight's dialogue. This produces an incredible amount of heat - this is why the spines are often exposed, even though that might be a point of vulnerability. The spinous processes in particular are very effective heat sinks.

But the tail? In most cases we don't need the tail, really. The spinal column ends at the base of the pelvis. The tail is cropped for most beasts on purpose - we don't need this thing dangling around and becoming entangled, and it has no machinery around it to act as replacement muscles so it couldn't move even if they wanted it to. Krokodilos's tail is the exception and it's just extremely heavy for not much pay off. That's a lot of additional engines we gotta maintain.

So the tail tends to be abandoned. The bones are kept of course but not mounted on the chassis where they're not needed. With no nerve cord running through them they don't run hot either so they won't disperse heat all that well.

Now for replacing bones... they don't. The bones that exist in the chassis are the bare minimum needed to perform the required functions - basic movement. They don't have ribs, they often don't have phalanges. A skull is there to complete the nerve cord - but all you need of that skull is the occipital bone. Nothing more.

If they break a leg, it might be repaired using screw and plate fixation. The bone may deign to knit together (enginesmiths swear that they don't allow tissue growth ever.. but sometimes you need some periosteum. Don't tell the bishops). But if it gets crushed? That's the holy beast done, scrap heap time. The majority of all holy beasts that have ever existed have already broken down and been decommissioned at the start of this story - we only have seven left (eight if you count krokodilos). Krokodilos is an unusual case because he is not dead, so they can't just hold a state funeral and add his heart engine block to the big hall of old hearts in the cathedral. He's sleeping.

But he's the exception. Take Saint Guinefort - dead as a doornail. He had a full funeral, his heart was put in the hall and his body was [redacted] like they do with all dead holy beasts. And then he was [redacted] and now our pal "Sir Victory" with the metal arm uses him as Nosewyse. Circle of life.

I think sidecar motorcycle is a pretty apt way of looking at him lmao. You don't wanna know how many people he's cooked.

-

Hey there! So I know I've mentioned they are similar to pterosaurs but they are not related to them at all. In fact they are cetaceans :) Later art I did of them plays up the mammal traits a bit more. Check out these nipples

However it is a fact that they are not closely related to modern cetaceans - as in, they did not evolve from modern whales and dolphins, but belong to a side branch that diverged relatively early, around the same time dragons were leaving the water for the skies. That art is quite old too, from before I kind of nailed it all down, so if I drew them now I would remove the more derived traits (i.e the single blowhole, the tail flukes, etc) and tidy it up a little. They diverged from the lineage that would become modern whales before the pelvic limbs were lost. I originally depict them having the crowbar-like claws on their feet to lever skin parasites off the dragon, but i think they are more likely to not use their feet much at all, and are more likely to use their single huge beak-like tooth to do the job instead. They cannot walk on flat surfaces.

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Only insects and, specifically, winged insects :) I know it would be really cool to have various other giant arthropods but milennia ago, when they crossed into Thera for the first time, insects were the only fliers. And there is no other way to get over the mountain range quickly enough for it not to kill you. The mountain range in which the endless city sits is completely and 100% devoid of life. A journey on foot for a tiny bug would be next to impossible - they are more likely to starve or simply turn around and go back to where the food is.

The winged insects, otoh, can cross the range in a day or less, if the breeze is flowing right. And they would find plants already there in Thera - also solely wind-dispersed species from the previous time the mountains arrived and linked the world with Earth. The insects didn't really come by choice, sometimes the wind just blows the wrong way, but they definitely got lucky.

There are wingless insects in Thera today but only because they lost that trait over time (like ants or larviform female beetles). They have managed to colonise every reasonable habitat, including the sea (though the sea is not very salty) and have developed into a lot of very strange forms which might be unrecognisable to us. But a lot of them just got bigger and smarter.

This time round, in the period of time the story is set (early 1900s on earth), the mountains appeared and new animals crossed over who were not insects. Birds have become invasive in Thera, happily taking advantage of the smaller insect species who are completely unprepared for this new threat. There are also some wind-dispersed spiders hanging out now.

EDIT: oh i forgor the parasites on the flying insects that first colonised thera... yes they would have mites and horsehair worms and things of that nature

[theshitpostcalligrapher]

req'd by @curious-sootball

actually you know what fair

text: The one food you're not supposed to eat is FISH! I said *nothing* about ASS!

[carpe-aurore]

Making little signatures based off of the vibe your blog theme gives me

@curious-sootball

[to-hagsmire-and-back]

wholeheartedly obsessed with this human Siv design from @curious-sootball , i got very inspired so... fanart

[pirefyrelight]

So when I called the count of monte cristo "count rainbow" I was referring to the mlp inkpotts animations, but now that I've listened to this song a few times, I have some notes, and I see where you thought I was coming from, @curious-sootball lol.

Alright, enjoy my edit!

Original animation

[jazzyishere]

I posted 10,518 times in 2022

That's 10,367 more posts than 2021!

163 posts created (2%)

10,355 posts reblogged (98%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@theminecraftbee

@curious-sootball

@prismatic-bell

@holsten-from-hasa

@thebleedingeffect

I tagged 1,280 of my posts in 2022

#sky: children of the light - 75 posts

#sky: cotl - 73 posts

#useful information - 55 posts

#lol - 39 posts

#hermitcraft - 38 posts

#i am ascending - 20 posts

#goncharov - 20 posts

#important - 18 posts

#unreality - 17 posts

#grian - 15 posts

Longest Tag: 140 characters

#then it’s 9pm and dark out and you don’t know what day it is and you think you missed classes and deadlines and feel anxiety for a solid min

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

The rift ate Mumbo’s Jumbo

171 notes - Posted May 1, 2022

#4

225 notes - Posted June 13, 2022

#3

TGC’s expectations: players will make friends in our game ☺️

Reality?

242 notes - Posted June 4, 2022

#2

And the hemitcraft charity livestream is off to a great start by smashing the goal before the event even starts

288 notes - Posted October 23, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

This appeared in my feed today and…

It feels like a message? That he’s finally at peace after fighting cancer.

Rest In Peace Alex.

390 notes - Posted July 3, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[tex-now]

Thank you @curious-sootball and everyone who got me to 5000 reblogs!

Yayyy 5k reblogs. What now

Horny asexuals you have my sympathy and respect

Asexuals who look at horny posting and think "real" I love you guys

Non-horny asexuals you have my sympathy and respect

Asexuals who look at anything sex related and gag I love you guys

All asexuals you have my sympathy and respect

Asexuals who just exist I love you guys

[a-casual-egg]

Hi! For the ask game, I , please ^_^

Hi!

I: Do you have a guilty pleasure in fic (reading or writing)?

That's hard, I don't know if there's any really like guilty ones. I wouldn't know what would constitute a guilty pleasure in what I write and read due to the fact that a lot of the stuff I read and write is just silly fluff. Does Iris count? Like original characters in fanfics. I enjoyed writing Iris in Silas and the Sheriff. I know some people don't like original characters in fanfics, but I think it's an interesting peak into how the characters would interact with people who aren't the people they've interacted with in canon. I haven't seen it often with fanfics I've read, but it's also nice to see how a writer of fanfiction would write an original character.

[carpe-aurore]

@curious-sootball

[cirilee]

uh, hey, i hate to pull you into this in case it turns out to be Drama but I think curious sootball just blocked me? idk if they found something hideously offensive in the mulan post they had just reblogged from me minutes earlier, or what, but I’m very confused... if it’s not too much trouble would you mind asking them if that was accidental because from my perspective they just vanished from existence and that’s. upsetting

i’m trying to check my own blocklist to see if I blocked THEM by accident but uh, either Tumblr screwed up again or I’m stupid or both bc I can’t find it, I don‘t use it often enough to know for sure if I’m just looking in the wrong place 😂

Ahhh, so @sztefa001 and me both checked, and even outside of our account it seems as if @curious-sootball's account has been deleted?

;_; !!!! COME BACK CURIOUS

if anyone knows what happened to them, or knows where else to find them, we would really appreciate it ;_; ! (unless they dont wanna be found and deleted their blog on purpose of course)

if their blogs' just been wrongfully deleted or something i hope they can get it back .....

[a-casual-egg]

@curious-sootball

The obsession for Epic continues with Odysseus and Athena

Their relationship is... Complex

[the-warrior-dreams]

Oof, Markoth...that sounds like an image problem /concerned noises/

Also, Elder Hu, how do you feel now? (I felt like Elder Hu is kind of... forgotten)

Markoth: *he actually picks up Shelby to hug her better*

Shelby: You’re like the dad that wasn’t ashamed of me. This feels so nice.

Hu: I’m quite fine, thank you for your concern.

[a-casual-egg]

13 for the ask game, please - what's a character or a ship you haven't written or drawn anything for, but would love to some day? ^_^

Ooh, that's difficult. I've written for a fair amount of romantic pairs and characters. Maybe writing something for the Cloneberts or Evil Dob? That would probably be a villain team au fic tbh. I do hc both the clonebert and Evil Dob in that au as aro (maybe ace) but I think they'd be a funny qpr so maybe that as well.

[hollowknightheadcanons]

This probably has been done before, but imagine Monomon doing this and Isma/Quirrel/whoever sees that freaking out a little before Monomon reassures them she's actually ok.

Those water things float around in Fog Canyon so this frequently happens.