#Like lions do with their cubs)

[fishyfishyfishtimes]

In my opinion people who start to viciously hate bottlenose dolphins after learning the full picture of their exhibited behaviour are weaklings. I learned about dolphin infanticide and gang violence as a preteen, went, “nature sure can be very cruel” and moved on with my damn day TToTT

#like what do you MEAN an intelligent apex predator doing intelligent apex predator stuff came as a surprise to you #lions kill cubs too dont they? you knew that right? sometimes animals harm other animals for kicks and giggles even if its sad #i WOULD say “humans do messed up shit too” but some of you people already hate humans so.. uh

[zzztlk]

I noticed that there are subtle differences between Rabel and transformed Nat. Mainly the eyes. Are there any other subtle design differences if we saw them side by side?

Ty, I'd been meaning to nail down their actual designs so here they are hehe.

Transformed Nat has a shorter snout, less developed wings, horns and mane, overall made to look like a more juvenile version of the thing that Rabel is. Another thing is that their bird legs / lion paws are switched. I only really did this because it looked better lol but i think it makes sense for the hands to change into talons since they're more mechanically similar.

#ttbasks #Thinking of also giving RabelNat's mane a more mottled looking appearance like lion cubs do #asks #nat #rabel #slowly making him more leonine and less doggy like

[chickenoptyrx]

We'll call it a sequel to this thing from yesterday.

#yknow that thing lions do where they get all dramatic when the cubs bite or attack them? #idk but thats related #uncle raditz #lol i like angst in theory but goofy shits more fun #saiyan squad gohan

[poisoned-pearls]

Hi does the florid family do cuddle piles yes or yes /lh

riddle is an unwilling victim in them. He could be chilling and the coordinated ATTACK by the three of them. If they’re visiting treyjade (who have access to a beach- think the ponyo house) he gets absolutely TACKLED in the water. Riddle became very good at holding his breath after this

#Florid #oh god- #i need to name the twins #Floyrid #lisgen I just #What do I call them- #I hc riddle as British/korean and Floyd as japanese #Maybe I need to see if their are names that have the Japanese character for goldfish like tamaki (she has turtle in her name) #… I need to check if tamaki’s name is a Kira Kira name actually. It was hard to find a name with turtle in it it could actually be a #Possibility #tragic! You accidentally gave a character a Kira Kira name with family members who would NEVER give their kid one! #I will look into that #But anyways- #Yeah he becomes like near world record at holding his breath (he had to encourage his babies hunting behavior #By allowing them to drag him underwater #Fake screams and all #Like lions do with their cubs) #He can hold his breath for like 2 and a half minutes

[kraviolis]

What would happen if Eberwolf and Luz met?

truthfully not a lot because luz is not magic and cannot understand eberwolf's language, though she would also be in awe of his magical prowess and would love to meet his ratworms.

also i havent figured out how i want to characterize eberwolf to be honest. they never got a lot of depth in the show which is fine but also now i have to give them depth lol.

#qna #anonymous #little lamb au #toh #i think i like the idea of eberwolf being mother-lion-y to luz & hunter #where she just sorta sits idly and occasionally brings gifts of food (the definition of food varies) and corrects behaviors firmly #but for the most part is just. silently watching over them #but also WILL tear someone's throat out if they hurt her cubs #they dont strike me as particularly paternal/maternal in like. the way camila or eda or even darius is #hes definitely the kind of parent who lets his kids do their own thing and if they fuck up then its a life lesson #darius is the one who frets and lays awake at night wondering if hes actually cut out for this or if hes just making the kids worse #cus darius is the second least instinctively paternal person (next to eber) so hes learning as he goes #but eber is so chill. he doesnt care. the kids'll be fine as long as theyre safe and warm and fed. #she's not good with emotions </3 shes all instinct

[avionvadion]

The way you play Genshin for Zhongli, who is an easily scammed old man because he doesn’t understand the weight of money despite being the literal god who created money, and then you play Star Rail for Jing Yuan-

Who turned out have the mixed personality of Zhongli and (voice of) Cyno, who refers to himself constantly as an old man, and you’re confused as to why that is, since he can’t possibly be older than thirty-five, until you learn he’s over three hundred years old.

Mihoyo really did it again.

They made me play their game because of their easily scammed old man himbo.

Evidently, I have a type.

#mihoyo #genshin impact #genshin zhongli #honkai star rail #jing yuan #man was scammed into buying a lion cub how can I NOT love him. and he named it MIMI. #he is literally Zhongli but like with Cyno’s work ethic. Does his job so well he naps because there’s nothing to do #gods. He and Zhongli. AND JING IS VOICED BY ALEJANDRO. AHHHHHHHH

[handfulofmuses]

I like that cub Cheezi is the one who gets offended when these cubs call them "hyena“ instead by name because yeah, using their species with disdain to refer to them is the most bothersome thing in that show

#kion: hyena. #cub Cheezi immediately: HEY HE HAS A NAME LION CUB #tbh he only does it because they do it all the time #he calls Fuli cheetah #mockingly refers to Kiara as cub #cub Cheezi was definitely tired of that nonsense of not using his name #genuinely appreciate the fact that cub Cheezi immediately reacts offended towards that like yeah kiddo go off on them #i love when they make Cheezi a loudmouth

[mountmortar]

something about how blue says “you got me!” after being defeated in sun/moon is so endearing to me and idk why 

#he's in my thoughts today. i guess it might be because it gives off such like. genuinely sweet vibes? like he just got beaten by an #eleven-year-old and not only does he compliment their skills he's like aw mannnn you got me! but in an easygoing way #that speaks volumes about his character now #OKAY I FOUND A COMPARISON IN MY BRAIN THAT SORT OF FITS THE VIBE I'M GETTING. do you know how lion cubs will jump on lions trying to #playfight and the lions just roll over and pretend like they're defeated. it's like that #i think it's lions that do that anyway. but you get my point #rival blue #alola

[masquenoire]

Not me wondering at work what Roman’s Chinese Zodiac happens to be. Lo and behold, it’s the Pig, specifically Metal Pig.

#💀 ;; OOC #💀 || musings #Guess he's a Pig now #He did get a Lion in one of those daemon quizzes but honestly it doesn't suit him #Lions are lazy and let the females do all the work hunting and rearing cubs and shit #Roman goes out of his way to find other people and fuck them up #Boars are so dang aggressive and their negative traits are greedy and hedonistic ect.That's him #His Western Zodiac is Aries #Which I guess means his birthday is coming up soon #Somewhere between March and April #Sorry to ramble I'm just feeling meh this week #Which is troubling as the weather is getting better #Must be hormones :/ #Anyways just saying I didn't know how accurate that aesthetic post was going to be #Thank you all for your likes and comments on it btw #Hope you all have a great weekend lovelies! <3

[taiglife]

Been thinking ab Myth retellings again and i think you could argue that there’s some aspect of misogyny in the unneeded and oftentimes subconscious villainization of female characters to counteract female MC’s in feminist retellings. Rather than solely utilising the obvious male characters. But it’s more so a sign that the author is not bothering to read the source work properly because if they did they’d pick up on the most useful characters to villanise. for example. why are there no fucking retellings hating on Telemachus. half the time they literally pick Helen to kick whilst she’s down rather than him. Anyone who reads the Odyssey hates that bitch. And the other half in which they do feature him they end up redeeming him rather than his father !! please just kill him horribly. 

#before ppl start yes i do think he holds narrative value #i think the reuniting scene especially where him/odysseus r compared to birds of prey #and himself as a lion cub #r absolutely bone chilling reminders of what men can be and will be #and make his turning on penelope even more potent #like travis the chimp <-- unintelligible comment to anyone but me #but modern authors see odysseus as the end all of evil like YEAH hes awful but telemachus man.. #his treatment of penelope in the telemachy and the heart of flint comment when she fisrt sees her husband again ooooh you're gonna get it bo #brother #idk i just think its weird ive never seen hide nor hair of a portrayal of telemachus as irrdeemable as odysseus is viewed as despite #the telemachy taking up what.. four of the first books? #and he literally spends two of them being a bitch to his mother #if u want to write odysseus as evil then like. write about how telemachus is constantly compared to his father. how does it feel to raise #a son that turns out as bad as the husband you escaped

[dappled-dunhoof]

Breeding craftable beetles on lioden is funny because it's like. You and three other people occasionally show up in eachothers dms like

"hey so... do you happen to have any <species> in <color>... and if so could you sell me a couple"

"is your colony collapsing aga-"

"my colony is collapsing again"

#lioden #thank you devs for adding the 'your beetles are going to die' banner but god i am bad at keeping these guys alive #it's more that i keep forgetting to breed them and then my adults are all dead of old age and I realize i have no more larvae lmao #i think part of it is how beetle slots work where it's like #with lions my cubs don't take up territory space. but larvae do so there's a harsher limit on which pairs you can be breeding when #if that makes sense

[b1rdbra1ned]

Having art ideas at 12 am yippee

#i think i’ll do fan tomorroww. i already have a rough silhouette for him #thinking about what i’ll make the other characters.. #cabby kangaroo but instrad of like a joey there’s just files in her pouch #no idea what ikll make paintbrush #saw somepne draw them as a lion villager once but i was also thinking about making them a horse #making suitcase a deer #lb probably dog or cub #ballon hamster #UH FEEL FREE TO SUGGEST STUFF BTW PERSONALITIES TOO #i’m going to stop talking and go to sleep gn #txt

[floaroanemoia]

     She is not a parent by any means, but Erykah will admit that when a certain Petilil play fights with her, the Zoroark does pretend that those tiny sharpened leaves truly are wounding her-- with theatrics and everything. And so, she has never truly won against Neem, for she always lets her win.

#❁⊱⦃ ⏤ {ic.} ⦄⊰❁ #❁⊱⦃ ⏤ {dash commentary.} ⦄⊰❁ #{you know that thing about lions pretending their cubs' bites hurt to encourage them... that's basically it} #{she's very protective of neem tbh} #{it just means when neem Does evolve years down the track erykah is lowkey like a proud mother} #{although i Do hc somewhere down the line Erykah ends up taking in some h!zorua and raising them as her own} #{because... i don't think it makes sense for h!zoroark to be capable of having offspring-- they likely taken in reborn zoruas}

[icyheart-and-friends]

What a befitting present for Mother's Day; cutting her off for the second and last time!

Anyway, happy belated mother's day to *me* because I was more of a mother to myself than she ever was. <3

#diye vents #i did it yesterday but im still pissed about it #i purposefully do not wish her a happy mother's day bc of the things shes done. I only reconnected per the wishes of my previous therapist. #she made a post like “now I get why mother lions eat their cubs. Second year in a row.” which now i know was directed at me bc my brother #DID wish her happy mother's day. So I posted everything she's done with proof and told her I hope it was worth her petty post and then #blocked her on everything :) which felt so fucking good.:) #what's funny is she deleted her post between when I commented on it. made my post exposing her. and went to block her bc i when i went to #block her it was gone. bc she hates being called out with proof and will try to smother it to continue trying to be the victim :)

[why-animals-do-the-thing]

I promised you some lions! Let's talk about manes, males, and management.

This is Tandie, the current male lion at the Woodland Park Zoo.

Notice anything odd about him? He's got one of those hilarious awkward teenager manes. Except... this cat is nine years old.

I was, of course, immediately curious.

Manes serve a lot of purposes for male lions, including being an indicator of health and fitness - it's actually a sexually selected trait and a social signal. Mane texture / hair quality / length is dependent on nutrition and the body having energy to grow (and carry around!) that much hair! The color is also a signal: males with darker manes have been found to have higher testosterone levels.

In one research report, wild males were much more likely to avoid a lion decoy when it had a longer or darker mane - but the girls really loved a dark mane. It's thought this is because a long, dark mane is an indicator of mate quality. Males with longer, darker manes have higher testosterone and were pretty healthy: meaning they had more energy for fighting, had a better chance of recovering if they got injured, and generally had a higher rate of offspring survival. Manes matter!

So, back to Tandie. He was actually born at the Woodland Park Zoo in 2014 alongside two brothers, to dad Xerxes and mother Adia.

This was Xerxes (rip).

Obviously, a very large, dark, lush mane on Xerxes here. So where did these blond muttonchops come from on his son?

I asked the zoo docents and got an answer that didn't make a lot of sense. They told me that after the three cubs grew into adolescents, they were moved to the Oakland Zoo together. But living together suppressed his testosterone, and he never grew a mane.

Hmmmm.

Here's a photo from 2016, when the brothers debuted at Oakland. They're a year and a half old in this photo.

(Photo Credit: Oakland Zoo)

And here's from an announcement for their third birthday.

(Photo credit: Oakland Zoo)

Okay, so these dudes obviously all were growing manes as of 2017. I think Tandie is the one on the left in the first photo, and laying down in the middle on the second. What happened?

I was just in the Bay Area for a zoo road trip, of course I went to Oakland and tracked down a docent to ask some questions.

It turns out that shortly after the brothers turned three, they started acting like adult male lions: they started scuffling regularly. It's a normal social thing for male lions to live in groups, called coalitions, but according to my lion experts there's generally a baseline level of some social jostling within them. It wasn't quite clear from what the docent said if they couldn't manage the boys together, or if they just wanted to avoid the scratches and small wounds that result from normal lion behavior. Regardless, they put all three of the boys on testosterone blockers in order to be able to keep them together as a social group.

Now, I don't know a lot about the use of hormone alteration as a form of captive animal management, except in the case of birth control. I don't think it's something that's unethical - there was just a webinar on it that I saw go by - but I don't think it's commonly done with big cats. Lions have kind of complicated reproductive cycles, and for instance, we've been learning that female lions can take much longer to come into estrus again than expected after coming off hormonal birth control.

In males, testosterone blockers (or being neutered) means they lose their manes. This is why a lot of rescues will do a vasectomy on their males instead of a neuter - it allows them to keep their mane and the social signals that accompany it.

Tandie returned home to Woodland Park Zoo after Xerxes passed in early 2022, and the docent told me all of the lions had been off their blockers "for while." I'd guess those things happened around the same time, since bringing the trio down to a duo at Oakland would reduce some of the social tensions.

Hormones are such interesting things, though. One of Tandie's brothers has a full mane again, and the other is still totally mane-less.

As for Tandie, his mane is growing back in, and it looks like he might rival his dad for length and coloration.

He started here, in February:

Yesterday:

What a difference four months (and maybe proximity to a girl) makes!

#big cats #lion #african lion #big cat behavior #zoo animals #zoo animal welfare #captive animal management #zoos

[dante-mightdie]

Viking simon genuineoy getting annoyed by the healer constantly seeking his attention when he just wants his kids hanhing off his arms and his silly ggoose of a wife scratching his hair that he literally pushes the healer to viking gaz

he just goes "hes a good man and a great provider bother him instead"

viking!simon my love <3

c/w: fluff, children, simon loves being a dad

shes really just not getting the hint, is she? night after night following your husband around like about puppy when he’s simply just trying to spend time with you and his children. it doesn’t matter how many times he attempts to tell her that he’s too busy for this, she tells him she doesn’t mind

“I mind.” simon grunts out, turning his attention back toddler squirming in his lap as they desperately try and escape his hold so they can run around the feast and cause mayhem

meanwhile, you sit right by his side with your little one tucked into your chest and nursing happily. your husbands cloak draped over your shoulders to give you some privacy. smiling as you listen to simon shut down her attempts at bothering him

he stands up, hoisting the toddler so they’re snug on his hip and grabbing her wrist before stomping off over to where kyle was sat. he pushes her into the seat next to him, ignoring gaz’s look of confusion

“kyle is need of a wife. I am not. he’s a good man, he’ll take care of you.” simon says, ignoring his toddlers grabby hands when they reach up to tug and yank on his hair, chewing on the ends of his braids. he doesn’t give either of them a chance to respond before he’s stomping back over to where you’re sat

plants his toddler back in his lap, securing them with a burly arm wrapped around them. you smile when you hear simon let out an exaggerated groan of pain, looking over to see your child gnawing on his forearm. their little teeth doing nothing to hurt their warrior of a father

“I’ll bite you back, you know?” simon grunts, a playful tone hidden in the words. and when your child doesn’t stop, he lifts their hand up to his mouth and ever so gently chomps down on their little fist. his teeth barely even grazing the skin whilst your toddler giggles and squeals at the playful growls your husband lets out like a lion playing with their cubs

you watch with a small smile, internally grateful to the gods for gifting you a good man

#mw2 #cod mw2 #simon riley x reader #simon ghost riley #simon riley #ghost #ghost x reader #simon riley x you #viking!simon