Himalayan Monal (Lophophorus impejanus), male, family Phasianidae, northern India
Photograph by Ajit Hota
:gasps: :goes to look up: :gasps again:
Fanciest dinosaur ever. A+++
PRIDEASAUR
@kisilinramblings / kisilinramblings.tumblr.com
Himalayan Monal (Lophophorus impejanus), male, family Phasianidae, northern India
Photograph by Ajit Hota
:gasps: :goes to look up: :gasps again:
Fanciest dinosaur ever. A+++
PRIDEASAUR
Why is the Prodigious canonically more powerful than the Miraculouses? Like Nooroo full on says: "It is for good reason that the Prodigious was abandoned in favor of the Miraculous! It was secured in that cave because it is too powerful, too dangerous!" and I just... don't see it?
Like don't get me wrong, being able to transform into animals is an awesome power, but how is it more powerful and more dangerous than the Miraculouses? The Peacock alone can create animals to fight and many other beings, we've seen the Butterfly give the power of shapeshifting to one not even using a Miraculous, and the elemental powers one gets in dragon form is the same as the Dragon Miraculous. And all of this is not considering the many other powers the canon Miraculouses can do, and who knows what the other Miraculouses not seen in the show can do as well!
Then to actually use the Prodigious you have to possess the value each Renling has to even transform! With the Miraculouses anyone with any intent or any values can transform and use the powers by just knowing the right words, words they can order the kwami to tell them with no resistance! Kwamis are forced to the whims of their holders with just a few words, while the Prodigious gets a whole powerful guardian to protect it and deem who is worthy to wield it? Why don't the Miraculouses get that level of protection?
Then finally with the Miraculouses we have the Wish with Tikki and Plagg's Miraculouses. You're telling me the ability to completely destroy the universe and recreate it at one's own whims is less powerful than shapeshifting? That the shapeshifting powers are the ones that needed to be sealed away in the cave but literal universe-ending powers didn't?
My guess is the Prodigious has no counter nor limit once all 8 forms are unlocked and mastered. And it is quite possible that, in the past, someone did manage to abuse its power while still manifesting all of the Prodigious virtues. And the cost to take back the Prodigious was far too great to repeat again according the Order of the Guardians or whatever preceded them.
If I recall, the Prodigious was the Prototype that lead to the creation of the Miraculous system as we know. It means that the mage(?) learn from the Prodigious mistake and divided the power and not put everything into one single jewel along with refining the magic system on which the Miraculous operate.
A recurring theme we got last season is that power must be shared. Not kept and definitively not amassed by one single individual.
Each Miraculous has at least one counter among the same box. Even the power of the Ladybug and the Black Cat can be deal with other Miraculous. And the Guardians are also train to battle Miraculous Holders if they go rogue. Even to get to the Wish, there are several steps to take. First, you need to get both Miraculous which normally aren't on the same person. Then you must know the magic words to unlock Plagg and Tikki's true form. Then you have yet another formula to summon Gimmi. And Gimmi will give you the rules of the equivalent exchange and the Wisher is the one who have to think of what will be used in the balance.
Not to tell anyone in a horror story what to do, but:
Forests are normally loud.
They're full of life. There's endless animals that live there. They make noises. Lots of them.
If you ever are in a forest and it's quiet, that's not right. That means something is very wrong. You should probably either be similarly quiet until you can figure out what's going on, or you should get out of there very quickly.
Even when it’s quiet there’s the rustling of the trees in the wind.
That being said, if you're used to the forest... you will not notice it. Just like how a city person probably won't acknowledge how loud it is to hear cars driving on the highway in the distance, or how most people aren't always aware of the sound of their fridge humming or something. It's background noise. It's normal. A quiet forest is normal; that just means there's no unusual noises, everything's faded into the background.
A silent forest is when you need to start hauling ass.
Yeah. A silent forest is the natural world's equivalent of an air raid siren.
this isnt even a joke. many animals (birds in particular) will get quiet when theres a predator nearby. even in animals with alarm/threat calls, because the natural first step is to avoid the big scary thing.
if you hear the forest go quiet, there is something hungry near you.
now, that could be a raptor bird species like an eagle or hawk, and that isnt your problem. but theres also stuff like mountain lions. ambush predators WILL CHASE YOU IF YOU RUN. walk, look big and strong, do not turn your back on the threat, and pray to whatever god you believe in.
also maybe dont hike alone. someone should really know where you are anyway no matter if its the woods or the city, humans have pack-bonding instincts for a reason.
Exactly! The best possibility when a forest goes silent is that everything is scared of something that isn't a danger to you, but you have no way to know that. Maybe it's just a big bird... Or maybe it's something that can eat your entire ass. You don't want to take that chance. You need to consider yourself to be in danger, and get out of there while keeping your eyes peeled for whatever might have caused the silence.
And this is equally true if you're in a horror story where there's ghosts and monsters or if you're just taking a nice hike. A silent forest is wrong, it's everything going "oh shit, hide!" and you should listen.
This post makes my country boy ass happy. I'm just glad a bunch of someones said it.
Someone has to keep these city slickers from getting eaten by a bobcat or vengeful lake ghost!
THE CASUALNESS OF THAT COLLIE SLIPPING RIGHT OUT OF THEIR COLLAR. That dude is a Willing Participant of this walk and by god everyone else is going to follow the RULES.
I wonder: Do Americans know about american school buses? Not their existence in general, but how they're seen overseas.
Over here, they're one of the symbols of America, on par with the Statue of Liberty, the flag, the Eagle, and well ahead of any chain restaurant you can name. People won't know any US states, but they will know these vehicles.
The thing is, here in Germany, we don't have dedicated school buses. The general idea is that kids go to school on their own. When that's not practical, they're expected to use (and given free tickets for) public transit. Public transit is designed around this requirement; there are many places where there is a bus, and anyone can get on it, but the route and timetable really only makes sense for school children. In case a dedicated school bus is really needed, that's generally subcontracted out, and the lines either use something like a Sprinter Van for smaller routes, or a normal city or interurban bus (often a used one that's a bit older). School trips are normal public transit, or a rented bus, typically a coach or regional bus.
It's not a perfect system, in the past couple of years there's been an epidemic of people bringing their kids to school in their cars instead of letting them walk, which is less than ideal. It is what it is. But building a dedicated network of public transit lines only for students, and building dedicated vehicles only for that, has never occurred to anyone here.
Of course we know about these buses, from movies and such, but they're as foreign here as cacti or pick-up trucks (actually we're seeing more and more of these here) or yellow cabs (all europeans will assume all cabs in the US are yellow until they actually visit).
You do see these buses here at times, because people still generally like the idea of the US, even if they have a lot of issues with a lot of details, and so folks bring them over, along with stretch limos and stuff (also not really a thing here). And of course, if someone goes to all that trouble, they don't do it to haul school kids, they rent it out for city tours or as a party bus or whatever.
So you see these yellow things as a symbol of faraway places, scenic vistas, some vague undefined idea of freedom that doesn't necessarily hold up to any contact with reality, and it's just a huge part of the whole US aesthetic.
And then you go to a student exchange with the US, and you finally get the chance: You yourself get to ride in one of these iconic chrome yellow buses! It looks just like in the movies! You get in, you drive in them a little…
…and you realise they're shit. Just the worst buses in the western world. Terrible suspension. Uncomfortable seats with weirdly high backs (so they don't have to put seatbelts in, they just restrict how far kids can fly in an accident). Everything made out of the cheapest materials. Turns out the reason why the US uses school buses like that instead of normal modern city buses, which the US has, is to save money and because they just hate kids.
And then it hits you why US Americans say "as American as apple pie", a dish that is made and enjoyed literally anywhere in the world, instead of "as American as yellow school buses". Of course the Americans already knew all this. They got tortured by these things forever. It would never occur to them to see this as a symbol of America, it's just a normal part of life for them. It's a symbol of school and school life and sometimes normalcy, and tells us that these actors getting out of it are supposed to be teenagers, nothing more.
But most people in Europe have, of course, never ridden on these buses. So when they see them in movies and TV, that's a giant big yellow signifier that we're not in Hessen or Wallonia or wherever anymore. A symbol of a different world, one that may be at most a once-in-a-lifetime-experience for most people, just like a picture of a tropical beach, Incan Pyramids, the Great Wall of China, or Hildesheim (there's no reason to go there twice). And I think Americans don't know that, and that's fascinating.
Huh, didn't know school buses were seen like that overseas, I kinda assumed that most countries used school buses. They're just so ubiquitous here (heck I got stuck behind a school bus as it stopped just an hour ago) that I don't really think about how common they might actually be, much less how other countries might view US school buses.
this also says something about expectations of autonomy for children and teens in the US vs other places
and about how in lots of parts of the US, school buses pretty much are the public transit, people who live out of walking distance of their schools don't have any options for getting there except ride school bus or drive car
this is fascinating and makes me wonder how uh, crowd control of little kids is handled? Like I assume the parents aren't riding along so what happens if a pair of little kids start throwing a tennis ball around or just starts crying loudly for some unknown reason? Does anyone have the authority to take care of them - to stop rowdy behavior and take care of emotional upsets and stuff? That is what I always heard as the justification for school buses. Well #1 is that everyone has a right to easy and fast access to an education no matter where they live, but #2 was that if the parents aren't there then there needs to be a licenced child care provider on hand to oversee the children (the bus driver, although I've heard that many areas have remvoed the requirement that bus drivers be licensed in childcare due to difficulty finding people?)
I don't actually know. Generally most issues are handled by the bus driver just yelling over the intercom until the kids stop being noisy, and even that isn't that frequent.
Ok, so this is gonna be based on my experience, but back as a kid (1990s), I remember the bus driver would stop either to confiscate the item for the rest of the ride or ask the kid to switch place. But the driver couldn't raise a hand or touch the kid. Oh! And behaviors tickets they gave to the kids for them to give them to their parents. Although, I remember one of my friends eat hers once she was dropped in front of her house.
Also, there was an hierarchy as several grades would ride one bus. During primary years, the logic was youngest at the front, eldest at the back. The eldest could intervene or help out, especially if it concerns their young siblings. And you had to get along. Unless you move or change school, you would ride the same bus every year with the same people. And the bus was also where you would make your first friends and continue to play with them in the school's playground.
As a teen, due to my school being in another town, I had to transfer bus. Two bus in the morning, four in the evening. So that means everyone you would ride with wasn't necessarily just from one single school. If any conflict, I don't recall the bus driver intervening then.
Another note, in my province, school bus drivers are paid only for the hours they are driving kids. Which sucks and I am not surprised they have problem finding school bus drivers.
the only reason why ten year old girls are destroying stupidly overpriced products at sephora to make “skincare smoothies” is because they aren’t being given access to a yard with a variety of mud, sticks, rocks, puddles, and old ceramic planters to make potions in. the children yearn for the apothecary
important psa
Awh, I always thought they were so pretty and had no idea they could be harmful
Can someone transcribe this? The water is really loud.
“Hey everybody! Here we are in the southern Appalachian mountains. We have a pristine Montane stream ecosystem, as you can see all around us here. I thought I’d make an educational video this morning. It involves this practice right here [gestures to rock pile]. As our national parks and national forests fall victim to human pressure, more than ever, this is something we’re seeing more and more of. Hopefully we can make this video go viral. This stream, as you can see around us right here, is a breeding ground for North America’s largest salamander, the Eastern hellbender. They can get up to 2.5-3 feet long. It’s part of our natural heritage in the eastern United States. When people do this right here - what they consider to be art - they’re actually destroying the breeding ground for the Eastern hellbender salamander. The Eastern hellbender will use flat rocks such as these to make nesting sites in these streams. So here’s what I would like everybody to do. If you care about our Montane stream freshwater ecosystems like this one around us here, when you see something like this, this is what I recommend doing: [kicks down rock pile]. Take the rocks, throw them back into the stream. The Eastern hellbender utilizes rocks like this. It actually feels pretty good to do this! [walks to other pile] This is not actually art, okay? This is destruction of our freshwater ecosystems. So I would like to encourage everyone: when you see this [gestures to second rock pile], do this! [kicks pile] I’d like to return our streams to their natural state for the organisms that live here. Thanks, and have a good day.”
PSA from a forest ranger who is instructed to knock these down:
Not only are they harmful for river/stream habits, they can cause hikers to get lost! Cairns are meant to represent the correct path for a trail. We’ve had hikers get lost by following incorrect paths marked by cairns people set up “for fun/art.” Not only do we want hikers to get lost, we want them to stay on the correct path for erosion control and ecosystem protection. Cairn-building “for fun/art” has gained a lot of popularity in recent years, so we keep finding more and more to knock over.
If you want to set up a cairn “for fun/art,” do it in a dry, very rocky area. Don’t take rocks from rivers or streams! But when it’s a bedrock site and there’s lots of rocks sitting around? Sure, fine, whatever. But please please PLEASE knock them down after! Don’t be the reason we have to deploy Search & Rescue for a lost hiker!
“We dropped different numbers of balls at different rates, different heights. We had a ramp. The ramps were at different angles, trying to get the most out of the balls as they hit the actors. After doing the tests, we figured out 35 feet above the deck of the ship was the height we needed our nets. We had these three big nets that held almost 80,000 per net. The balls dropped 35 feet into ramps that projected them towards the stunt guys. It just knocked them over. It was pretty spectacular.”
“It’s amazing to see a bunch of 40 and 50-year-olds turn into three-year-olds all of a sudden. Everybody had to pick up blue balls, hit the other guy in the head. It was like, ’Is it time for the parents to come pick up the kids?’”
#dashcon if it was good
One week left (more or less. or whenever I remember) before I close the submission! Get your apologetic bad guys in!
296. Toco Toucan
Dungeon Meshi - Orcs
Today I learned 3D animation is a horror show outside the camera's field of view.
There is now a spiritual successor to this nightmare fuel...
I think we can update the expression "you don't want to know how the sausage gets made" to "you don't want to see the reverse perspective of 3D animation."
Oh god, what if they animated sausage making?
The painter and the writer 🎨✍️
Image ID:
MASS DEATH IS IMMINENT IN GAZA
The U.N. warns that 1.1 million Palestinians are at imminent risk of death, as the crushing toll of the siege reaches its lethal and final stages. In North Gaza particularly, there is little time left before hundreds of thousands of people will die of hunger.
Time is almost up for over a million people. The US and its allies bear full responsibility for what can only be described as an impending holocaust. Without an immediate change of course that includes the provision of mass amounts of aid into Gaza and sanctioning Israel, mass death from starvation is a guarantee.
It is extremely important that this isn't just "more of the same" here. They're out of food, it is getting worse. Integrated Food Security Phase Classification is an organization for studying food insecurity, and they have a scale for how bad food insecurity is. Gaza has BEEN in phase 4 for a long time now, and that's already what is called "emergency". Its bad. But they only now have been upgraded to phase 5, outright famine.
This isn't "more on-going cruelty" like I have heard from so many. This has changed to "no, this community is currently collapsing, and will completely die out if we do not do something NOW to at least take them from 'dying' to 'starving'". This is acute food insecurity on an unimaginable and unsurvivable scale. Contact whoever you need to immediately, because it literally does not get worse. This is the part where the genocide could fucking its goals if you do not do something to spurn your government into action.
Like it's been said before that when Israelis and Zionists cry "why do you single out Israel?!", they should in fact be reminded that Israel singles itself out. I mean, who commits violence at this magnitude and then bemoans being the victim??