#if there is an animal to befriend we WILL befriend it

[y-rhywbeth2]

In fairness, if I were BG3 Viconia I would also hate Shadowheart's guts. You spend 100 years in loyal service and then get thrown aside because Shar will not stop trying to make this girl Sharran.

And she is. Terrible. At. It.

'Mistress, we've had to send her to have her memories reset for the fifteenth time this month.'

'Mistress, she won't stop defending the trans girl no matter how many times we remind her that she's supposed to be driving her into misery and isolation to better embrace your teachings. We keep telling her that acceptance of diversity and befriending minority groups is Selûnite behaviour and she's still doing it.'

'Mistress, she's cooing over fluffy animals again. She just saved another cat that got hit by a cart. Now she's trying not to cry over it.'

'Mistress, she cannot lie to save her life and I'm convinced it's inherent and immutable. I've been training her for 30 years and she still keeps outing herself as Sharran in public. It's basic doctrine!'

'Mistress, this is a complete waste of res- no, I'm not questioning you! ...but it's been 30 years and we're using up so many torture implements and spell components putting her back on the right track, I'm sure temple funding could go to less taxing things?'

'Mistress, p l e a s e.'

But Shar cannot be convinced she's ever wrong and is determined to prove that she's inherently better than her sister and will cut off her nose to spite her own face; so Viconia has to keep pushing that boulder uphill. Time for re-education session #984!

I mean it's horrible for Shadowheart, but it's also so hilariously stupid on Shar's end. Sure she might win and corrupt Shadowheart, but oh my god this time and effort could've gone to better use.

[treasureguardingdragon]

LOOK AT MY DND PARTY

(im the yellow-green guy with a dinocat :D)

left to right on above image:

- mossfrog (dragonborn, sorcerer, will fireball anything and worships frogs)

- salmon (tabaxi, warlock, has conversations in funny voices with her hexblade)

- pelleas (half orc, paladin, is injured by the party more than the enemies and very possibly has rabies)

- eirua (drow, rogue, has destroyed more egos than lives)

(there is one guy missing because they joined later so i havent drawn them yet but they are d’ish the survivor, a 2’7 purple grung monk and i love them :D)

[alabasterpickles]

Some more random Botw/Totk/Aoc sketches I WILL post on instagram once I’ve finished another handful I have sitting on procreate!

I’ve got it stuck in my brain that following the events of Age of Calamity the Yiga clan work closely with the castle and I like to think Kohga prides himself on his new promotion

Though he’d never put himself in harm’s way, so I definitely see that third drawing happening on the castle grounds where Zelda is definitely not in any danger

(Also? Daruk and Mipha? Definitely gossip buddies)

I JUST *LOVE* THEM ALL SO. MUCH.

[shortkinglogan]

🐺Logan HOWLett🐺

[barksbog]

i do have a little discord server if anyone wants to join

i post wips, future schemes and plush announcements but there are also other crafting, toys and creature channels!

[kitty-pilled-gamma]

am I sensing Iroha character development?

[carnivalcarriondiscarded]

i need to share the absolute fucking Experience i had playing minecraft tonight. i'm gonna be emotional about it for days

so me and my friends like to play on this server that's pretty much just a bunch of minigames. one of them is Murder Mystery - of a group of - i think its 13/14 people - one person is randomly selected as the murderer (spawns with a sword), the other as the sheriff (spawns with a bow). the rest are innocent. the innocents can gain a bow by collecting coins. no one knows anyone's status unless the player shows their sword/bow. i'm doing a quest where, in order to get points, i need to kill the murderer.

so as the game start countdown begins, me and my pal are checking out this Red Link skin. it's pretty neat! we're all crouching and punching at each other, as one does. i feel a connection form with Red Link. we're buddies now. we're in this together.

so we're all running around the map. every time i see Red Link, we crouch and punch at each other. the game is going fine, we're having fun. i'm delighted that i've made a one-game friend.

then my friend says that Red Link is the murderer, and i literally have a hard time believing it. Red Link? my Red Link? no, they must be mistaken. we were together at the start. they had ample opportunities to kill me. it can't be Red Link. but whoever the murderer killed was the sheriff, and i needed to complete the quest - picking up the sheriff tombstone grants me the bow.

so i run, trying to find it, and i turn the corner.

there Red Link was, standing at the end of the hall, by the tombstone, with a sword in hand. i froze. i was so upset - not Red Link! not my dear companion! i was so sure that was it.

but i walked forward anyway, thinking that maybe if i dodged around them, grabbed the bow, and turned and shot fast enough, i could get them. the thought was actually distressing! Red Link didn't put the sword away. they watched me slowly approach. we stood on either side of the tombstone, and i expected Red Link to cut me down. i was well within reach of their sword.

Red Link calmly, still looking at me, moved to the side and past me. i panicked and grabbed the bow, ran to the corner, turned and drew - Red Link was already at the other end of the hall, running away. i didn't want to shoot, but i needed the kill - who knows when i'd get an opportunity to complete the quest again. it's a tough one.

i missed, thank fuck, but man. i was in shock. i thought i was a goner.

then, after the game where awards are given - the murderer, who killed them, who collected the most coins - i went up to Red Link and crouched. they crouched back.

then they left the game.

[timemachineyeah]

I think in the next Animal Crossing, you should have to earn your control over the environment. And I don’t just mean working to get terraforming, I mean, like, earning it before getting to decide where other people’s homes are and stuff.

Idk, the deserted island is fun but I kind of hope in the next one we’re back to being a new face in an already established rural community. And you can still progress to moving absolutely everything on the map and decorating each square foot and flower to your liking, but, like… these other people have lives of their own.

I like knowing a rando isn’t gonna move onto my carefully curated flowerbed and ruin my path, but I don’t like how much the villagers in ACNH feel like fashion accessories rather than neighbors.

[0rczy]

Big fan of sun and moon themed characters who are burdened with a destiny they need to find/fulfill.

And the random funny rogue who they go on silly (read: lifechanging) adventures with.

[wazzappp]

Fond thoughts overwhelming my brain

[oceanwithouthermoon]

sorry im thinking about. akechi and kaido being the autistic nerd and autistic geek duo.

[anghraine]

I know I talk pretty regularly about Faramir's weird command over animals, both because he's my fave and it's cool, and because it's just such a strange detail. But I've also been thinking for awhile about some less direct but still intriguing quotes about how he relates to animals.

So, the usual ones first. Here's Beregond, describing Faramir getting his horse to run towards five Nazgûl while the other horses are fleeing:

‘They will make the Gate. No! the horses are running mad. Look! the men are thrown; they are running on foot. No, one is still up, but he rides back to the others. That will be the Captain [Faramir]: he can master both beasts and men.’

Then there are nameless soldiers in Minas Tirith, watching the orderly part of the retreat across the Pelennor:

The watchers held their breath. 'Faramir must be there,’ they said. 'He can govern man and beast.’

(For context, the ancient Númenóreans he takes after could summon particularly beloved horses by thought alone.)

But also, back in TTT, we heard some interesting details that may be pertinent. Firstly, there's Faramir himself, speaking to Sam:

'Were I as hasty as you, I might have slain you long ago. For I am commanded to slay all whom I find in this land without the leave of the Lord of Gondor. But I do not slay man or beast needlessly, and not gladly even when it is needed.'

And when Anborn reports glimpsing the creature that turns out to be Gollum, he says to Faramir,

'You will not have us slay wild beasts for no purpose, and it seemed no more, so I tried no arrow.'

I think the suggestion here is that it's not standard policy for them to avoid killing wild animals, but a command from Faramir specifically. And he's clear here that he doesn't kill animals for any purpose other than necessity.

And I mean ... if I could get nervous animals to run straight towards Ringwraiths, I'd probably feel weird about killing them, too. But it all does fit together very neatly.

[sophieswundergarten]

I love that cats purr. "I'm so happy and content right now I must vibrate to communicate it"

[sigurdjarlson]

@oroontheheels they’ve been coming to our feeders for years now and we put food out for them but they’ll still quite skittish and fly away if we get near or sometimes even if we stare at them too long lmao (very suspicious birds)

So we’re like… neutral to them I think. “bring me more food but don’t get near me or perceive me.”

Admittedly it would probably help if I tried to slowly get closer over time when I feed them or hang out close by after putting it out (our feeders are pretty far from our house) and build trust that way.

That’s how I once befriended a horde of feral cats at our old house.

(I’m also not sure if we put food out consistently enough either since it’s not every single day but they do show up when we do so they know it’s there sometimes!)

We do give them peanuts actually! :) they love them.

You know I was surprised to learn blue jays were corvids too a while back and we get a lot of those too. Those guys love peanuts too. They’ll divebomb squirrels trying to get them and each other!

I will say watching the crows is generally just fun. The way they mob any hawks trying to lurk around the bird feeders looking for a quick meal is hilarious. Also their alarm calls act as alarm calls for all the other animals too I noticed. Everything will bolt. They’re like little feeder guardians!

[lotuspeacock]

random thought but what if the police car that Yuki’s mom has as her pfp means that her husband is a police officer?

it would be hilarious if kazuki and rei are able to escape the police during a chase bcs of that. like, a police officer investigates a back alley during pursuit of a murder suspect and he sees the nice, if a little strange, dads of his child’s friend instead and thinks that the suspect must have gotten away. meanwhile, the two hitmen are hiding murder weapons behind their backs.

[rw-ethology]

Do you have theories on why lizards and how relatively open are they to being befriended by slugcat? Them continuing to be a threat to slugpups makes sense, as well as possibility of the lizard accidentally biting the slugcat during a careless attempt at feeding (which is why I now only give them snacks by tossing and running the moment I am sure the Lizard is locked on it). But usually it seems predators take longer to form such mutualistic (suppose?) approach, especially to prey. Cycles maybe?

Looks like kind of a mixture of both generally recognising when it benefits them to stick around, and resource-guarding behaviour directed towards a creature that has made itself look very valuable.

There's two main ways a slugcat can go about taming a lizard- by establishing itself as either a source of food, or a source of protection (saving one from a vulture causes your reputation with it to go way up). Either way, you've convinced it that eating you or letting you die would be counterproductive at this point, so as long as it remains convinced it'll follow you around and protect you from its rivals and other threats so it doesn't lose out. There's probably a number of things that factor into why they'll act in this way so readily, but if you look at it as an alternate expression of other traits and behaviours they already show off, you can kind of see where it might stem from.

Lizards are incredibly food-motivated- they'll go for pretty much anything they can fit in their mouth (that's large enough to be worth the effort), and will ignore almost everything else to run and cache it in their dens, presumably to store for later instead of wasting time that they could be spending finding more. Especially considering the state of the world and limited time pressure placed on every creature by the rain, in general it's probably kind of difficult for a large carnivore to consistently find enough to eat every single cycle. A successful catch whenever you need it isn't at all a guarantee; with that in mind, them having developed some degree of stockpiling behaviour would make sense, and suggests at least a rudimentary understanding that being careful with your food supply hugely bolsters your survival odds in the long run. Likely as a direct consequence of this, many lizards are highly territorial and/or competitive to varying degrees, and will chase rivals down and fight viciously to steal each others' prey or protect their resources under threat. It's also important to note lizards have a global reputation system- if you're nice enough across the board they'll become passive and if you harm enough they'll start to fear you, a behaviour unique amongst predators that suggests as a species they're just about intelligent enough to learn from experience and observation when it's better to just leave something alone.

It's most likely these specific characteristics that allow a lizard to become "tamed" so quickly. All you're really doing is taking advantage of their ability to recognise a valuable benefit, and redirecting their drive to defend one onto you, by teaching them to associate you with good things. No matter how tasty a slugcat looks, if it's proven time and time again that it will provide more food and support (that you desperately need) while alive than it could ever be worth dead, then why on earth would you want to let it die, or allow some other creature to take advantage instead?

However, this relationship only lasts as long as you put the effort into maintaining it. If you fail to let them into your shelter or feed them enough in subsequent cycles, or throw weapons at or around them (even by accident), they'll decide you're no longer worth the effort and quickly go from warning-bites to straight up turning on you as your reputation drops. Additionally, considering they by and large don't seem to recognise the slugcat's other companions- be it other tamed lizards or pups or friendly scavengers- as anything other than a rival or something else to eat, it's pretty clear that to their understanding they really are just guarding a resource and not joining a pack; lizards are not social creatures by nature with very little need to have developed emotional intelligence (even yellows I suspect aren't very close with each other beyond their advanced hunting formations and sharing prey), and any cooperation is strictly down to improving their odds of survival, not any form of attachment or gratitude as we would recognise it. It's still considered mutualistic, as both parties benefit from the relationship, but while a slugcat might become emotionally attached to their companion, the lizard isn't really capable of reciprocating in the same way.

With all that in mind, it's likely not the case that they're any more open to being "befriended" on an emotional level than any other predator in-game- they're just the only ones you can successfully lead to believe that you might actually be more useful alive than you would be as a few extra food pips, and for that to work out in your favour. Other major threats to the slugcat like vultures, miros birds and most large invertebrates most likely either lack the intelligence to discern one prey item from another, or they're so high on the food chain there's simply no meaningful benefit they could get out of collaboration (or both). It just so happens that lizards manage to be in the perfect position on the food chain with ideal behaviour to take advantage of that it's made possible to convince them being your friend is worth it, however temporarily.

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BONUS: the first lizard i ever tamed. was a little bit pathetic and utterly failed to protect me from anything before falling off a building in sky islands trying to wrestle a white lizard and losing, but the several painful minutes I spent being mediocre at squidcada hunting were worth it anyway. I miss him every day. godspeed you blue idiot