The Dragon's Lair

don't give up

May I add This Post?

--whomever @tenaciouswritingdragon reblogged the tags from (I'm not savvy enough to know who it was)

(you really need the whole post experience)

The tags I reblogged were from @Mumblesplash!

I edited my original post to include their name, but I guess tumblr doesn't show the updated version to everyone 😄 oh well. That whole hope thread is lovely! Worth the read, everyone!

hope is a skill

hope is a weapon you are trained to wield

favourite additions

(Above tags written by @mumblesplash)

You cannot hide this in the tags, bestie. This is too lovely to keep a secret.

Recently found an electric typewriter and thought it perfectly suited the beauty in the tags. Again, all credit to @mumblesplash !!

Hope everyone’s hanging in there <3

psst she’s behind you

There is one brain cell in the Base when Zo is gone and Beta has custody of it

greetings 🥰

Typical week doin marshal and champion things

Kotallo asking Aloy to accompany him to test out his new mechanical arm and then killing a machine together is really just the Tenakth way of taking someone out on a date.

You can't convince me otherwise.

Not to be a killjoy (though it is what I do best) but the unsafe and rough handling of a baby Pygmy hippo in a pretty substandard Thai zoo being meme-ed into something funny and cute really shows just how much groupthink plays into public perception of animal welfare.

Moo Deng shows avoidance, threat displays and stress around her keepers that are constantly man-handling her, blasting her with a hose and harassing her. The enclosure is mostly concrete, which is horrible for her soft feet. There looks to be some substrate but there doesn’t seem to be any areas for wallowing or deep water wading.

There’s also very easy access of this hippo to the public with no places to hide. I’d love if someone could shed more light on the enclosures but from what I’ve seen it’s not great.

Also the free contact and forcing into tubs that the keepers do is only going to create an avoidant and potentially aggressive and dangerous Pygmy hippo.

But the public happily overlook that because she’s cute. It’s a similar attitude with seals too.

Stop rewarding bad husbandry with clout. Baby animals deserve agency and respect and to grow up without getting harassed and feeling the need to defend themselves constantly.

Somewhat unrelated but that recent viral video of the pelican being manhandled in a shitty indoor facility is also driving me insane, but I guess it's funny because pelicans are evil or some shit.

This is the shittiest pelican enclosure I've ever seen, compare it to the second image at an actual zoo.

A few photos for context

Defensive behaviors!!!

Mouth open and trying to bite!!!

Thank you for adding these images! Gives me an excuse to go research hippo behaviour further for context:

Note that all of these mouth open behaviours are accompanied by either direct contact bite, avoidance related behaviour (turning body away, being chased, grabbed) and eyes are wide with the whites of her eyes visible.

Compared to examples of mouthing interaction with a baby common hippo like Fiona

Note the softer eyes, no wide bulging eyes or whites showing and no avoidance. Fiona was very young here and you’d expect to see “baby aggression” like frustration ect. But this looks more affiliative towards her keepers than aggressive.

Context helps a lot. In all the pictures of Moo Deng she’s being reached out to, touched or sprayed with a hose. That’s generally not the response you want to have to husbandry in a free contact setting.

And here in is Pygmy Hippo natural social behaviour with each other:

Soft eyes, mouths not completely open (which would be more of a threat display), affiliative interaction between a breeding pair.

Jaw sparring with a youngster in common hippos.

In this context, this is a free interaction with no force involved and is species specific between mum and calf.

I think it’s interesting to see the contrast between Moo Deng’s stress/threat behaviour compared to other common hippos and Pygmy hippo behaviour.

people can look at art of siblings hugging and accuse the artist of drawing incest. the internet is so porn-brained that it cant interpret anything between siblings as anything but incest.

if you look at siblings being close, hugging, kissing, interacting in ways that are clearly not intended to be incestuous and immediately think it IS (ESPECIALLY if the artist has said multiple times that their art ISNT), you are part of the problem.

YES. I really hate how perverted everything is on the internet. Please, not everything needs to be or has to be SEEN as sexual :(

‘You should only send hearts to ppl you’re romantically involved with’

WRONG! BOUNDLESS PLATONIC LOVE, WARMTH, AND ENTHUSIASM BE UPON YE!!!❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

I know we talk a lot about keep jumping on boxes, but I'm honestly so grateful for Joe hills' knife theory; a variation on spoon theory that says once you're out of spoons, you can choose to take knives instead in the knowledge that it will hurt later. and the number of times I've told myself 'ok let's take the knives' is so high that I've found it really helps to acknowledge it. Thanks, Joe

I've not heard Joe say this. It make sense. I needed it in my life.

"How do you write such realistic dialogue-" I TALK TO MYSELF. I TALK TO MYSELF AND I PRETEND I AM THE ONE SAYING THE LINE. LIKE SANITY IS SLOWLY SLIPPING FROM BETWEEN MY FINGERS WITH EVERY MEASLY WORD THEY TYPE OUT. THAT IS HOW.

You will not use AI to get ideas for your story. You will lie on the floor and have wretched visions like god intended

did u think I wasn’t gonna put delicate hand moments into this.