The Bronx Zoo has just released Flaco's necropsy results.
He was not thriving, as the people championing the ideal of "freedom" claimed.
He was poisoned.
He was sick.
He was suffering.
"Freedom" would have eventually killed him. A building just happened to do it first.
"Postmortem testing has been completed for Flaco, the Eurasian eagle owl that was found down in the courtyard of a Manhattan building a little over a year after his enclosure at the Central Park Zoo was vandalized on February 2, 2023. Onlookers reported that Flaco had flown into a building on the Upper West Side of Manhattan on February 23, 2024, and acute trauma was found at necropsy.
Bronx Zoo veterinary pathologists determined that in addition to the traumatic injuries, Flaco had two significant underlying conditions. He had a severe pigeon herpesvirus from eating feral pigeons that had become part of his diet, and exposure to four different anticoagulant rodenticides that are commonly used for rat control in New York City. These factors would have been debilitating and ultimately fatal, even without a traumatic injury, and may have predisposed him to flying into or falling from the building.
The identified herpesvirus can be carried by healthy pigeons but may cause fatal disease in birds of prey including owls infected by eating pigeons. This virus has been previously found in New York City pigeons and owls. In Flaco’s case, the viral infection caused severe tissue damage and inflammation in many organs, including the spleen, liver, gastrointestinal tract, bone marrow, and brain.
No other contributing factors were identified through the extensive testing that was performed.
Flaco’s severe illness and death are ultimately attributed to a combination of factors—infectious disease, toxin exposures, and traumatic injuries—that underscore the hazards faced by wild birds, especially in an urban setting."
The naturalistic fallacy kills animals in horrible ways. The romanticism of what humans want to think of as a "free, wild, pure life" cannot be allowed supplant the reality of injury, sickness, and death. Releasing captive animals (or keeping them from being recaptured) because it's "better" for them to suffer untethered than live a healthy, safe, captive life is inhumane and horrific.
Flaco's life didn't have to end in pain, sickness, and suffering.
Flaco's death didn't have to be tragic.
But once the idea of "freedom" entered the chat, Flaco's fate was unavoidable.
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oh also one thing that i realized just now: qbagi’s initial suspicion over what’s happening to qphil being tied to the federation is technically not wrong
you know what drew qphil’s deities’ interest to him and quesadilla island? the birdcage. rose said in her earliest message ”I could sense the bleeding heart of the one I once knew, far, far away”. the deities noticed qphil had disappeared, and maybe they were curious to know what had happened, but the thing that drove them to find him was rose’s want to help him. and if she really was the one that freed him from the cage (and it’s heavily hinted she was), that birdcage undeniably was the thing that launched all of this into action.
how the enderking figured out that qphil had been weakened? we don’t know, maybe he sensed it, maybe he had already been observing him, maybe he noticed rose leaving to look for qphil, it doesn’t really matter. what does matter is that the trauma qphil got from being locked in that cage is what gave the enderking the perfect opportunity to strike. and is what led us to where we are now in the story. so even thought the federation isn’t ultimately the one tormenting qphil right now, it can still all be traced back to them and their continual abuses of power :)
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I am SO mad at Solas rn.
So I’m playing DA Inquisition for the first time rn and I’m a female elf romancing solas. Just got to the Vallaslin reveal about it being the marks of slaves.
He offers to remove it and I deadass spent minutes agonizing over the choice. I decide to remove the vallaslin and THIS BASTARD.
HE LEFT! Now I wasn’t expecting much. But I was expecting him to at least NOT panic and leave.
And yeah Ik who he his bc tumblr spoiled it and that there’s a lot of fear and doubt going through him. BUT DUDE.
Your girl just GAVE UP a large part of her heritage. That means she’s in an extremely vulnerable emotional state rn. She needs comfort and reassurance. YOU DONT LEAVE HER. Have your panic attack after she’s in a stable place!!
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What do you think about the fics where children of nabateans and humans are either humans or nabateans?
Fics are fics so it's basically the author's interpreration and fantasy being written, but as far as personal taste goes, it's not really my cup of tea!
Where's the fun with fantasy settings if you can't come up with mixed blood humans who sekritly (or not so sekritly) descend from some sort of other race of beings and got super powers from that deal ?
I think I ranted about it in a french post some months ago about this but it was kind of salty.
The only setting in FE where half human children were developped is Tellius with the Branded and... well, let's not go there, after all, it's the verse that tells you that racism is BaD, but miscegenation is also BaD...
In Elibe, fwiw, bar having weird mystical powers and longer lifespan than humans, but shorter than full blooded dragons, hybrids aren't generally developped (and that's taking into account Al from the manga).
That being said, in the particular context that is Fodlan and some characters' pov about Nabateans, their blood and a general discussion about what is "humanity" used to "other" sentient beings that are despised because they are "others"...
The "kids are either humans or nabateans" isn't really something I'm fond of.
But hey, fics are basically someone's takes on canon and there's no point about arguing headcanons !
Like, even with half-lizard Lycaon AUs, some people could try to explain his "died from a sudden illness" in different ways : he can be inherently prone to sickness because he is a half-lizard, or, in my hodgepodge of an AU, the "dies from a sudden illness" is a cheap cover up story to hide his assassination, at the hands of members of his dad's family because they wanted the throne and because he was a half-lizard.
We basically have two different takes, coming from two different people about a thrown away line, which creates, in substance, two differents AU/HCs/fanfics!
So, to reply to your question anon, it's not the HC i came up with and not one I like because of all the racial implication and tensions Fodlan, as a setting, has regarding coexistence.
But I'd be really pissed if anyone went to comment on a fic to say the author's headcanon is "wrong".
Now, if we're talking about people claiming to write meta or to comment canon, it's another story - but in the end, the canon answer is "10k years of lore" so we're pretty much quickly entering headcanon territory, and when people try to pretend their headcanons are canon, that's how you end up with 5 years of discourse lol
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tubbo is genuinely so so good at this villain arc thing, he's thought this out fully and has his motives laid out and is wholly committed to ruining quackity by forcing him to spiral via psychological warfare.im getting chills every few lines like he's grinning and giggling and genuinely getting so much joy from the idea of causing q to suffer. also after he delivered a sick line to fit, post dramatic exit he went "THAT WAS SO COLD" like yes king hype urself up
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if simulacra was a game what would the play style be like?? 🤔
a while back when rpgmaker was on sale and everyone was talking abt making games and downloading renpy too (I think it's free? or was? I had it for a minute idk if I still do) I was gonna make a joke dating sim where u could try to date the gods but u could never actually romance any of them except like maybe el but then they'd immediately disappear out of nowhere
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