All the collected Alphas in Stormblood artifact gear that I drew for my Shadowbringers countdown. Hope everyone’s enjoying the new stuff! I might be adding a few more choco friends to the collection soon…
i can’t help but notice that a lot of my peers and younger people don’t get a lot of enjoyment out of nature. and i don’t mean that as a “blurrhh the millennials don’t know what’s good for them, blrurrh log off and go outside” way either
what i mean is: have you ever actually taken the time to look at an animal in the yard and notice all the things that are great about it? like, there’s a difference between reblogging photos of fat birds on tumblr and doing that. you can actually get sustained joy out of staring at a pigeon or even a particularly cool tree, and it’s not taught in schools but it’s still something you can practice!!
why would you want to practice that, tumblr user 2-face? some thoughts:
the multiple studies showing the benefits to mood and stress-related health you can experience by looking at nature: not just the recently shared ‘stare at an aquarium for 10 minutes’ study but older known stuff like ‘stick your head out the window and look at a tree for 10 minutes and your blood pressure will go down and some of the symptoms of your depression and anxiety will be alleviated’
got adhd, like me? feel like you’re boiling your brain alive in a simmering pot of bad thoughts when you walk from point A to point B without having your dopamine rectangle firmly in front of your face? no problem, check this out *looks at a bush on the way* wow whoa woo-hoo
increase your empathy for other living things with this 1 easy trick (thinking about them a lot and noticing their inherent value)
if you plan to have kids you can pass this onto your children and they will likely have a better time and be less dependent on predatory technologies for their fun (read the book The Last Child In The Woods for more about that)
if you do art, your ability to draw nature could benefit from looking at nature more and understanding its nuances and then you can get commissioned to draw fursonas and make the big bucks ;)
ok so how do you practice looking at a bird, tumblr user 2-face? well stop calling me that, and:
step 1: find a bird. if you live in an urban area, this will probably be a pigeon, sparrow, or seagull. now step 2: look at that little bastard.
examine these qualities: the shape and silhouette of the bird. how does its body shape indicate the type of flying it has to do and the places it inhabits? how does its beak indicate the type of thing it’s meant to eat? what does it actually eat now? does its beak work against it in the modern world or aid it? if you had to design a human version of the bird, what shape might the human have?
look at its locomotion. does it fly in short bursts or long swoops? can it turn easily in midair? when it has to travel on the ground, does it walk or hop? check out the way a pigeon’s head bobs as it wanders. check out the interesting steps a starling takes. look at the little dashing run of a blackbird and how its body stays at the same level throughout.
look at how alert it is. what is a bird looking at? what is a bird thinking? watch the blackbird delicately flip leaves to hunt for bugs. watch the pigeons congregate in little flocks and peck at the grass like hens. watch the seagulls bully each other and descend ravenously on a dropped chip. watch the sparrow fly with a tiny stick in its beak!
look how it interacts with other things. these pigeons are friends and groom each other. this blackbird is a mother, and if she thinks you are going near her children, she fakes a broken wing and hobbles away, enticing you to follow her. these sparrows all go up to the highest and wobbliest branch and turn to balance in the wind. that seagull is young and has not lost its baby feathers, and it shelters uncomfortably from the rain and begs for scraps. look at that bird pulling on a leaf, cracking a snail on a rock, playing with its neighbor. how smart they are! what can we learn from them?
repeat as often as possible.
if you feel like you’ve mastered that, here’s your advanced level looking-at-nature quest: how can you apply the above steps to less relatable things, like a tree, a rose, or a spider? what do you like about those things? what do you notice? what can we learn from them? what are their daily lives like? how can we improve our relations with them?
Can someone please tell me what it means when an owl LITERALLY fucking swims towards you and then stares you down??
Like look at it?? Literally flew past me and my my friend, it was so close that the wings touched our faces.
It’s reminding you to do your Duolingo practice
The real answer is that it really wants you to go away
That’s a fledgling great horned owl, they’re known for being generally ballsy and aggressive, and owls have been known to both climb trees and swim through still water in a pinch
Most likely full scenario: the bird was practicing flying, but it fell because it’s still a kid and they do that. It probably fell in/by the water. It then was like Oh Damn Oh Jesus and decided it was not in fact a duck and headed to shore, saw you, and was utterly offended but confused on what to do. So it decided to Square Up and face you like the hellbeast it is.
The pose it’s taking in the pic is one I affectionately call Full Orb. A fully orbed owl is 100% READY to FIGHT 1v1 no items final destination. You were probably its first up close encounter with a human, and since birds tend to associate larger animals with predators, it tried to make itself look as big as possible to make sure you know what’s up. It was staring you down because it was waiting to see you make the first move in the dual or flee in fear from its superior owl might.
The bigger ones have a deeper call, but American Kestrels are itty bitty, and first cousins to squeaky toys, yes.
Yeah no red tails are fully capable of sounding like squeaky toys, and eagles have pitiful squeaky calls. The bigger ones are not exempt from squeaky toy classification.
I will consider myself enlightened!
There’s nothing quite like watching a big badass looking eagle go “meep”.
The exact opposite feeling of that is seeing a barn owl, looking at its soft looking pretty fluffy face, thinking it emits pleasant hoots like other owls, and then “SCREEEEEE” - the worst freakiest sound you could ever hear in the woods at night comes out.
And so I learned why they’re called “chouette effraie” in French.
Yep! When I said all, I meant all. Some of them can manage a dignified noise now and then–see redtails, which make the noise that’s almost always dubbed over eagles as an “eagle call,” because actual eagle calls are hilarious–but they all do make at least some chirpy squeaky noises.
Except barn owls. They make a sound that I cannot describe. It’s because their diet is 80% souls.
Can someone please reblog this with links to the other birds’ calls? Please?
Sure, can do!
Bald eagles make a noise like dodgeball being played on a very squeaky gym floor.
This red-tailed hawk makes some laser gun noises, and then the screech usually dubbed over eagles.
And here’s a barn owl, making the hellscreeches it loves. (Fair warning: this is loud, and the bird sounds reallllly angry. She’s being relocated to a safer location after choosing an unsafe nesting site. She’s fine. Just real mad.)
An excellent question! The original Greek word was “oktōpous” which was latinized/modernized to “octopus.“ Because of this Greek root, the original plural is “octopodes” (oktṓpodes). However, the most common plural form in English is “octopuses,” which is what we use here at the Aquarium.
The plural “octopi” comes from the incorrect assumption that “octopus” is a Latin word. But, it’s so popular that it’s in the dictionary, and even though it’s not technically correct, it still gets the point across that you’re potentially dealing with several octopuses, so go for it if that’s what works for you.
Tl;dr: “Octopuses” is the plural we use here at the Aquarium, “octopodes” if you’re texting Poseidon, and “octopi” also works, especially when ordering eight desserts.
iamschrodingersdog sent:
