#this is certifiable human

[askmisfitsneasels]

modernJenny hugs the sneasels in a surprise hug. A extremely large Beedrill standing by in case one tries to attack.

"Aw! you are all so cute!"

Acatc backs away from the child and her Pokémon with her shields raised and ears pinned back. “Just a human kit,” she muttered.

“A human kit means adults are likley around,” Albitr whispered from where he hovered over her shoulder, still invisible.

“Get the others. Tell them we’re moving.” She says to Albitr before speaking to the beedrill. “We mean your human no harm but I will defend my troop against any threats that may be brought by her presence. Take her away and do not tell of us.”

Meanwhile Albitr had made it to the small clearing where the others had gathered to rest.

Thistle was the first to notice Albitr, skidding to a stop. They stepped to the side dodging Target before making their way to the honedge fusion. “Why are you back? Didn’t you just leave to get Ambs?”

“A human kit has discovered us. We will be moving again shortly. Spread word and gather what we need.”

“Frickin again?! We just got here!” Thistle snarled before stomping away to prepare.

All sneasles are open for questions!

[ionomycin]

it's you, after all

[meirimerens]

youtube shorts is just tiktok without being on the app the amount of "i'm a [qualification] and [misinformation]" could make one turn their skin inside-out in protest. "i'm a board-certified OB-GYN & it's only been about the last hundred years that women have actually experienced menopause. We didn't live long enough to experience it" how can you be so incredibly wrong about something so integral to your practice. King of the Hittites Hattusilis III was told in 1250 BCE that his sister was too old to reproduce at age 50+. Aristotle wrote in the 4th century BCE that women stopped menstruating between ages 40 to 50, common menopause ages today still. i cannot begin to tell you how 4th century & 1250 BCE don't really count as "the last hundred years" unless that -s is doing a lot of heavy lifting. waiter waiter more misinformation laws.

[rocketbirdie]

smile for the fans!

[fishareglorious]

they should've put enigma with the lakers instead of laplace

[applestorms]

actually. @moonlarked you wanted someone to talk about near & light as parallels? cuz uh...

ok SO, my big hot take on near is something like this: one of the most common criticisms i see about near is that he is simply too apathetic/bored/uncaring/etc, and that because he is not as emotionally invested as L, his win against light doesn't feel nearly (lol) as satisfying as it could've been. this is a view that often frustrates me, but for a very particular reason— namely, while i think it is somewhat accurate in content, i think it misses a lot of important context (and also misses a lot of the importance of light's character arc, but we'll get to that much later).

one of the most important things to remember about the wammy's kids is that, whether they like it or not, each and every one of them is defined almost entirely through their relationship to L. this is perhaps more obvious in the case of characters like BB and mello, who are very Aware of this shadow being cast upon them and react in very overt, emotional ways (e.g. becoming a literal serial killer out of seemingly pure spite & desire to be noticed, idolizing him but in a very emotionally complicated, kinda detached sorta way, etc), but it is true for Every wammy's kid, purely because of how the house itself functions. these kids are being raised to be L's successor— the greatest (and second greatest, and third greatest) detective on the planet. this is the ultimate goal hanging over every one of their heads, and it places a constant pressure on every kid there.

oftentimes, i think (perhaps both out of story and in it, as well?) people get so caught up in comparing near to L that they forget he also falls under this umbrella— only, for near, his position is slightly different because he actually somewhat succeeds at the task? like, yeah, L never gets the chance to officially call near his successor, but between the fact that he's constantly called the #1 kid at wammy's and that he. literally does actually end up becoming the new L after kira, i think it's always been pretty clear what his path was going to be.

going back to my starting point, this is one of the main ways that near makes a really good parallel to light in my mind, specifically the light that we see right at the start of the series. in both cases, near and pre-DN light, we see a kid who has succeeded at everything they've been handed, and more notably, we see a kid who is bored out of his fucking mind looking at the prospects of what he's got.

in the case of light, this is maybe a little more realistic/easy to understand— light does well in academics, he does well in sports, he does well with people. he is likely to follow in his father's footsteps with something criminal justice/police/law related, but even if he diverges from that path it likely won't be too big of a deal, as he has shown himself to be capable in enough areas that he's likely to succeed no matter what. by all measurable standards, light's doing pretty good at the start of the series. and yet— there is something so distinctly and inherently Bland about his life before he gets the DN. i've said before that light wouldn't call the DN a curse even if he wanted to, but i think in that moment when he's telling ryuk he disagrees w/ his father after visiting him in the hospital, when he says, "I've never once considered finding that notebook and gaining this power a misfortune. In fact, it's made me happier than I've ever been." (ch.22) he's still getting at something real and truthful.

again, going back to my equating of boredom with depression in this series— light's life is pretty good by all measurable standards. he has a family who loves him, presumably more than enough money to get by with a pretty cushy lifestyle, and does well, honestly better than well, in every single system he is presented with. but even so, he's still unhappy. there is something in his soul that has not yet been satisfied. he's bored of the world, bored of his place in it, how easy it all is. what the DN really offers him is a challenge, entertainment— just the same as L, and just the same as ryuk.

near similarly suffers from this kind of boredom, though it is perhaps less overtly stated than in the case of light, L, and ryuk, and less easy to catch as it is not as realistic/common. again: near basically ends up the winner of wammy's house. he is the one to take the title of L, he's declared the smartest, bestest kid at wammy's, and he gets all the power and privilege that comes with such a title. but still— he's so. fucking. bored. much to the embarrassment of mello, this shit was never really a challenge to him. it's pretty obvious that near isn't really even all that attached to the title of L— don't forget that his first real introduction to the story involves him explicitly saying that he'd be just fine working with mello as essentially co-L successors. and this is a viewpoint that he holds onto until the very end of the series, actually, claiming that he was only able to best light due to mello's sacrifice. near doesn't really give a fuck about the rat race he's been slotted into, though it's perhaps for that exact reason that he ends up winning it anyway, and getting all the responsibility that comes along.

that being said, i think there are still two main differences between light and near:

light fucks up.

near never gets past his boredom.

in the case of this first point, i do not mean to say that near never ever makes any move/judgement that could be considered a mistake— mello killing the entire SPK is the first thing that comes to mind, which i see as blood on near's hands for the same reason that L takes at least some responsibility for lind l. tailor. rather, i mean that near never makes a such a monumental fuck-up that he has to overturn his entire worldview just to account for it in the same way that light does when he accidentally kills two people w/ the DN the first time.

it's like, if you've ever known (or been) the kind of kid who always got perfect grades in school, straights A's for K-12, only to reach college and suddenly bomb their first test and have an existential crisis as their only real achievement in life is crushed into dust, then you know light yagami. only for light, it's on a whole 'nother scale, because not only does he fucking oopsie daisy kill two people, but he kills in such a context that he can mentally manipulate it back into seeming heroic. i hate to say that suffering causes character development because that's terrible advice (it's how you react to terrible circumstances that matters, imho) but to some degree, yeah, having conflicts/hard times in life is just necessary to figure shit out sometimes. near (and L, oh goddd i need to write about L properly sometime) has so many things smoothed over and handed to him, and on top of that, he's a super genius very rarely fucks anything up, at least according to base logic. he doesn't even really consider the morality of anything he's doing until light straight up asks him in a desperate bid to keep talking at the end, it's all just logic and factors to consider.

this all leads to my second point, which is that near never really gets the chance to overcome his boredom in the same way as the others. ryuk at least gets his entertainment for a couple years, and light and L (and mello) get so invested in each other and their game that it literally kills them, but near just kinda. keeps going. he keeps being L, he keeps solving cases, he does the duty he was given and enjoys his toys... and that's it. he lies around, the only one left to live, never even taking credit for the end of KIRA, never gets another haircut, and keeps the title going. what a life, for a kid who dragged a god back down to earth.

sidenote1: toys

am i reading too into things? maybe. near's toys hold a lot of significance throughout the story in more specific ways, most notably the finger puppets he uses at the very end of the story while tracking different people's/kira's actions, though you could probably read some kind of meaning into every toy he has and the ways in which he plays with them. what i want to look at here though is more the general reasoning behind playing with them in the first place— a desire for a childhood he didn't get to have? a love of games more generally? (could track with him seeing the KIRA case, or really all detective work, as just another game.) you could also read into his toys as another source for near's apathy/detachment from reality, literally breaking every notable person around him down into a doll by the end of the story, speaking a lot to how alienated he is from the world (again, very similar to both L and light, there). i don't have much more of a point to make here, just wanted to add this in somewhere since it's one of his most striking visual character traits.

sidenote2: light's arc

going back to my point at the start of this post... light's character arc.

uhh. near winning is a good thing, actually. and i don't just mean that as a moral claim— DN itself as a story isn't really concerned with trying to answer any moral questions about good or evil or the justice system, so it makes sense & is fair to me that it doesn't try all that hard to answer anything along those lines by the very end of the story. what i mean to say here is that near winning is a good thing on the level of the character arc, specifically as an end to light's arc.

i made a post a while back while mid-manga reread talking through some of the reasons why L's death can feel kind of unsatisfying/paint the second half of the story in a less interesting light (hah) for a lot of viewers, with the main point i ended up on being that L wasn't really able to win because he never really had all that clear of a win state in the first place. i still kiiind of agree with this point, though i think there's a lot more i could add to that post... anyways. point is, i bring up that post because it touches on a similar thing to what i want to talk about here: light's character arc being a tragedy.

this is more speculation on my part, but i think another part of the reason why people get turned off to DN post-L death is not just the fact that L isn't really a playable character in the game anymore, but the fact that light's character arc takes such a dramatic twist after the timeskip. i talked about this a little bit in my little ramble on light & titles (which a lot of you liked, apparently!! ty for all the lovely comments on there, i love reading what you guys have to say ^w^), but light's character arc in DN is a tragedy to me, full-stop.

tragedies to me are cyclical— revolutionary, if you will. since all stories necessitate some kind of something to take place, a tragedy to me is all about a character beginning in one point, then continually getting hit by Event, after Thing, after Event, only to end up in essentially the exact same place that they started. any character changes or development that seem to happen throughout the story are ultimately nullified by the end— the main subject does not truly grow, does not truly reflect on their actions or traumas, does not move on. two steps forward is two steps back. even ending up in a position worse than they started is sometimes better than a true tragedy, in my mind, as at least then there is some chance they may still reflect or change or grow in the future, leaving the hope that they may still overcome this new circumstance later on. a true tragedy ends in nothing meaningful ever getting the chance to truly change, at least in the case of the main subject of the story.

light's character arc in the first half of the story is an upward, underdog kind of story. yes, light has the power of a shinigami, of a supernatural force that the rest of the world doesn't even know exists— but part of the real appeal of his conflict with L is how powerful L feels in comparison, having the wealth and respect and title to command a world's worth of forces against him. fuck, even taking down naomi misora feels like an incredible hurdle overcome, a teenager managing to charm and yap and flutter his eyelashes out of a shitty situation he was only just lucky enough to stumble across in the first place, to stop someone who could've ruined his entire plan with a few words. killing L was always going to be light's greatest accomplishment when it comes to his rise to godhood, not only because of L's great power but the comparative position of light at the time that he did so— not yet an adult, not even really out of school, perhaps barely out of his parents' house.

in contrast, light's arc for the second half of the story is a downward spiral. we see all of the consequences light has been miraculously avoiding smack into him like meteors in this half, his ever-growing ego torn to shreds as he's yanked back down to earth. and in comparison to the anime, the manga really beats this point into you, dedicating the entire second half of the story to light's fall from grace as he loses his mind and loses his humanity. like, while i do kind of prefer the manga ending to the anime, i have to admit that light's death there is fucking brutal. light goes through pages, chapters, purely dedicated to near tearing him a new asshole, only end the story bloody and delirious and crawling on his knees begging a god of death to fix everything— all just to die the exact same death as everyone else he's killed. i mean, look at these fucking pages (ch.107):

(that last fucking picture of him. clawing at the sky. it always fucking gets to me.)

it hurts to read this shit!! we spend the entire first half of the story watching this dude's rise to glory, the entire time stuck inside of his head, emotionally connecting with him even if we don't really mean to or disagree with his actions or question his morality. watching his fall back down, especially after all of that, is fucking painful— an in no way does near make the process any easier. if anything, his blunt, snarky bitchery, saying all the quiet parts out loud, calling light out for being a terrible replacement L and pointing and laughing at his failures to his face, only shoves more salt in the wound, only proves just how human he has been all this time, how meaningless any of his supposed "rise to power" ever really was. light got his fifteen seconds of fame, sure— but near is armed and ready to make sure that's all he'd ever get, that the name Light Yagami would never even be associated with the position he held for so long. six years was all he got— and it was all he was ever going to get, because light yagami did not do this for humanity, he did it for himself. all near did was collect the debt that L prescribed. he fulfilled his duty as told— nothing more, and nothing less.

i just have to wonder... is this why people hate him? because he has no sympathy for the fall? maybe. i don't know.

either way, i don't think i could ever really hate him. it's a big responsibility, being the only one left behind. but near has always been the one to hold such weights on his shoulders.

[wthtorke]

First thirst meme batch of the year (come get yalls juice)

Heres to another year 🥂

[sikonu]

COGITO ERGO SUM. I THINK, THEREFORE I AM.

And here's some random images I used as overlays because I love doing that

[electroniccollectiondonut]

listen I KNOW we don't like him but he cuts a guy in half from a hundred feet and then he comforts Alina and tells silly little jokes. I know he's evil and fucked up but HOW am I meant to not like him.

[blurrymango]

*Human!

[partiallithopseffect]

destroy me why don't you

[zombiegirl789]

She’s innocent your honour😔

def not sassing anyone 💁

Nightmare sans by @ jokublog

[jammboe]

Mipha being a rebellious gremlin 😈

Had a ton of fun animating this, might do midna or hilda next 😌

[trynadraw]

this is the bisexual agenda

[actuallycassidyiambusy]

Luffy (nonchalant): So, what are you? One of those incubi that are sent to trick me into falling for my darkest fantasies?

Buggy: Pfft. What? No, why?

Luffy (panicking internally): 'oh shit oh fuck'

Buggy (grinning like a smug bastard): WHY?

[supernal-shadows]

Science of Bird People

I was speaking to a friend, regarding the comfort of different sleeping positions in avian humans, which led to an infodump on the logistics of bird people and the adaptations they would need to be somewhat plausible. As a certified autistic bird nerd, I feel the need to share my considerations to all of you lovely sex-havers. (Sincerely, an ace.) -----------

1. In order to maintain powered flight, most birds have a bone called a keel, which is essentially an enlarged breast bone for wing/flight muscles to attach to. The logistics of how we would place wings on a human body, which already has shoulder-controlling muscles attaching to the breast bone, is a question unto itself, but considering that bird wings are in fact just a bird’s arms, we can safely assume that a six-limbed modified human, with both arms and wings, would need two sets of pectoral muscles.

-RIP to Scott’s chest dysphoria, but seeing as both male and female flighted birds have keels, I am choosing to believe it causes him no additional dysphoria. (Not from his birdy brain, anyway. Human brain may be another story…)

2. Regarding oxygen intake during flight:

True flight is one of the most energy-consuming abilities in nature. To sustain it for any long period of time, flighted birds have several adaptations to help them consume as much oxygen as possible. The first of these, which will be relevant later when considering a reasonable wingspan for a six-foot tall humanoid, are hollow bones. Hollow bones in birds are called pneumatic bones. They are not hollow in the way that a human’s would be if you stripped them of bone marrow; rather, they have “pockets” within them in which air can flow, which helps move oxygen more efficiently through their bodies. Contrary to popular belief, this does not make bird bones lighter or weaker. The bone is denser than in mammals, making them more difficult to break— but this also makes them brittle, more prone to shattering or splintering when significantly damaged, whereas a similarly-sized mammal might only receive a simple fracture. 

Additional information, less relevant to Scott’s external anatomy and durability, purely for additional context of how the bones themselves “breathe”; therefore, this is an optional read:

 The energy expended during powered flight is exponential, so oxygen needs to be flowing in at the same rate that carbon dioxide leaves. Air sacs connected to relatively small lungs help maintain that unidirectional, constant air flow, to provide the large amount of oxygen birds need to consume in order to fly. The hollow spaces of a bird's bones connect to these air sacs. Oxygen exchange does not happen in the bones or in the air sacs, but it does offer more space for air to be stored, giving them a greater overall lung capacity.

The actual process is quite difficult to explain in a quick summary, but if you know about “circular breathing” in humans, it’s almost similar, in the sense that air is moving around even while breathing in or out— though of course, the actual process is more complex than just pushing air out through cheeks. 

3. Wingspan

The most important thing to consider about wingspan is an animal’s weight. In a world with an atmospheric density similar to earth, there is no chance that a bird as large as Scott would be able to take off, especially considering the added feather weight. Large birds such as waterfowl and vultures already struggle quite a bit.

However, that said, this is fantasy. We can pretend it has a denser atmosphere and/or weaker gravitational pull, and beyond that we can simply suspend our scientific disbelief.

We’ve established that Scott’s hollow bones would not make him lighter. Therefore, we can assume he weighs about the same as any other six-foot tall humanoid (ignoring added weight from extra limbs and massive feathers for simplicity), and his wingspan therefore would not need to be larger than any bird proportionally the same. This is true even if we pretend that his bones would not be hollow, more similar to that of a mammal’s.

Barn owls are normally about 13-16 inches in length, with wingspans between 39 - 49 inches wide.

A small, 13-inch-long barn owl might have a wingspan close to 39 inches— three times that of the body’s length. If we assume the same is true of Scott, then his wingspan may be up to 18 feet long, with each wing measuring close to 9 feet.*

*Note: a bird’s length is typically measured from the tip of its beak to the end of its tail feathers. Scott may or may not have tail feathers, as discussed later in this post, but he does have meaty human legs which may create more weight and drag. It is well-worth considering that his wings may be even larger to overcompensate for the lack of a tail, in order to create that lift he’s missing otherwise.

4. All this raises the question of how Scott could possibly maintain all of his feathers. 

There are several steps to preening and maintaining feathers. Some are simple, such as simply shaking, raising, and ruffling feathers to get them all in place, but other steps are far more complicated and time-consuming, while being vital to a bird’s survival.

Scott, entering this new world where even breathing is different, would have had to go through a period of not only learning how to maintain his feathers, but also coming to terms with having to set aside potentially hours every single day for that purpose. 

Real birds have an oil-secreting gland at the base of their tail. They collect the oil with their beaks to spread it through their feathers. 

There are a few ways a humanoid avian might do this, such as collecting the oils from a special gland with their hands and spreading it through their feathers, but I’d lean toward the assumption that there is an oil he has to or can choose to buy, and specialized combs to help spread the oil evenly over each feather. 

By himself, going over each individual feather might take hours, so this could be a great way to bond with friends who help him, especially when it comes to feathers at the back of his wings that he can’t reach with his sad human arms and short, inflexible human neck. 

Along with learning to keep the feathers tidy, he also has to keep them clean. Shaking and oiling them would be required for daily maintenance, but as an owl, if he gets his feathers wet, he will be far too heavy to fly until they fully dry. If he gets them covered in mud, it might take weeks to get it out.

Owls, if you don’t already know, have “hairy” wings that help muffle sound during flight. The bottoms of the feathers are rigid, but the ends of each wing and tail feather are fuzzy to allow air to pass by without a sound, and the top of each feather also has a unique layer of “fuzz.”

Whereas most birds have some amount of water resistance and may be able to fly in the rain, an owl’s feathers make them uniquely vulnerable during wet weather, unable to fly in the rain. 

(Consider the vulnerability Scott must feel when it rains, particularly during adverse weather. Consider the angst potential, whether it’s during his adjustment to his new body; or his desperation when his friends forget he can’t fly in the rain, assuming he’s right behind them or somewhere overhead, while fleeing an enemy during a storm. Imagine Scott crying out for help as someone grabs and binds his wings, but his friends can’t hear him over the downpour.)

I had it in my notes for writing this page to also mention pin feathers and blood feathers. My ramble about feather maintenance was pretty long-winded as-is, so you’ll be spared… This time.

TLDR: Feathers as disability (in towns that are not tailored to avian, or even owlish-specific, races)

5. Tail Feathers!

I find it very difficult to imagine a humanoid (and therefore upright-walking) owl with tail feathers. How do they keep them from dragging on the ground and being useless? Do they have a different way of steering and controlling flight? Are their tails just incredibly perky? How does that work? 

I have nothing to say here except to point out how important it is to have some way to steer flight. Think of Toothless from HTTYD. Can’t fly without the tail fins, and for good reason. 

Bats control flight by having extra long fingers, but feathered wings don’t have those extra joints and feathers aren’t as maneuverable as skin.

Artists, I’m looking at you. Give me your wildest theories and ideas, if he doesn’t have tail feathers (or how we’d make that work).  I can envision some horrible and beautiful alternatives. Please ask me for my ideas; I have so many. 

(A perky tail is the most simple solution to Scott's tail problem-- funny, but we can be more creative.)

Ask me about Scott’s sleep habits and the logistics of that with extra and feathered limbs! Ask me about the weird ways he’d have to land after flying, particularly at high speeds, and whether or not that might cause joint issues over time! I have so many thoughts and notes that I was info-dumping onto @imfindingsolace, but not all are relevant to his physical anatomy as discussed here. [I want someone to make a meme that just says "GET AUTISMED" in a way that feels or looks like you're being punched with autism. Pretend that image is here to finish off this post.]