#raybytheway

[transgender-chiroptera]

Can you share some of your favorite bat facts? I wanna add more to my lil arsenal of cool random facts. :]

Of course! Apologies for the late response, I saw this at like 1am four days ago, forgot everything I knew about bats, and then fell asleep and only remembered I even got this ask today. Anyways! Some bat facts :)

Common Vampire bats are some of my absolute favourites, mostly because of their ability to run on the ground! They can gallop with their forelimbs and take off from the ground by leaping into the air and catapulting themselves with their wings, which is speculated to be how Pterodactyls took off as well! Most bats cannot take off from the ground, and must be elevated to take flight, so this is pretty cool. Makes sense too, since they mostly feed from the ankles of large mammals and so need ground maneuverability!

Here's a video of a vamp taking off, and here's a video of one walking around! I think their skittery movements and lil' faces are just the CUTEST, but I know I'm probably in the minority there. Also there's a large dish of blood in the second video, so fair warning there!

All three true Vampire bats have evolved special grooves in their mouths in order to act as a gutter of sorts to funnel the blood into their mouths, but the exact arrangement differs between them. The Hairy-Legged Vampire bat has a groove along the roof of the mouth, whereas the White-Winged and Common Vampire bats have lingual grooves under the tounge! Speaking of White-Winged Vampire bats, they're the only bats in the world with 22 teeth, for some reason (likely no reason since the molars are vestigial), AND they have scent glands in their mouths that might be used to deter predators. Pretty cool stuff!

Finally, all three species of true Vampire Bats are cute as hell. Look at these lil' guys!!

(left to right- White-winged, Hairy-legged, and Common Vampire bats!)

#idk why the vampire theme these guys are just always on the brain. I love them so much #they aren't scary at all! being a hematophage doesn't automatically make a creature scary or bad in any way #No worse than being a carnivore. the blood to blood contact makes them vectors for disease but that's not their fault #besides so would being carnivorous if they didn't have to kill their prey most of the time lol #I love and appreciate these beasts. They have an important place in the ecosystem and should be respected. the best that can be done #to mitigate the diseases they are vectors for are vaccination efforts and improved accessibility to healthcare #but that's a wholee other discussion lol. hate that i feel the need to go on the defensive when saying i like an animal I'm passionate abou #ANYWAYS tag ramble over. thank you for the ask!!! always love an excuse to talk about bats haha #ask #raybytheway #bat #common vampire bat #white-winged vampire bat #hairy-legged vampire bat

[glassbirdfeather]

Yo! I'm new to tumblr, kinda. Made an account a buncha years ago but now I'm actually using it! I didn't think Elden Ring was talked about here, but seeing a multi paragraph essay about Mohg's horn surely changed that. But with all of that out of the way, I'd like your perspective on something. It seems many tarnished online believe that embracing the Flame of Frenzy and robbing Melina of her purpose as a Finger Maiden is "saving her". This is very obviously wrong, or else Melina wouldn't vow to kill you if she felt she was being saved. She doesn't merely vow to kill you, either. She explicitly plans to bring you Destined Death. She is going to ULTRAkill you. Yet many tarnished still interpret the Flame of Frenzy as an option to "save" Melina. This confuses me, and I was wondering if you had any idea why this interpretation is so popular.

Well, you're definitely saving her from self-immolation, people are right about that. Whether her existence as a "burned and bodiless" spirit is one worth 'living' is up to interpretation. She may not think so.

But perhaps she does. After all, Ranni seems… fine? With not having a flesh body? Sleeps a lot, but plenty of people do. Sellen doesn't care. Stick Melina in a doll and maybe she'd be pretty cool with it. The key thing here is, if she does think her existence is one she could enjoy if she had another way, the absolute destruction of everything forever-and-always is not something she considers an acceptable trade.

You can reverse the Frenzy ending with the needle so she survives, but doesn't come after you during the end cutscene because you're not burning down the world--of course, it isn't a stretch to think she still resents you. Whether or not you take this as her letting go of her vow to ultrakill you, since this keeps her from ending her existence, some people consider it worth her eternal grudge.

Personally, I consider Melina the not-irritating version of Fi from The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword. I don't think her character arc was handled very well, I think she didn't demonstrate much personality, and I think there was not enough agency to her to feel like she was ever a 'real' person instead of a gameplay mechanic with a voice. She went from "I need to go here to find my purpose," to "This is my purpose I was given by someone else and I'm going to do it," so any motivations or desires she might have beyond that are up to fandom interpretation.

Why is this interpretation so popular? I dunno, not to be flippant, but, uhhhh, maybe people don't care to look much further than "Oh noes, mah waifu's on fire D:" and don't consider why she might be okay with or even want that? There can be fandom spaces for thirsting after your favorite Elden Ring girlie AND spaces for in-depth, canon-focused lore discussions. Not everyone is into both. Just. Make sure you know which one you're in.

On the other hand, I'm sure there ARE some people who will insist that this is the best ending because you save her, and that means it's definitely a black-and-white choice and of course she's better off this way. There's no nuance there, because, after all, being alive(?) is better than being dead!

And those people are lacking in critical thinking skills and media literacy because their education system has failed them. While I could go down the rabbit hole of why that is (at least, in the USA), that's probably not what you were looking for with this ask.

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Funny enough, I think Melina shows the most of her own values and perception of the world right outside the Frenzy Flame Proscription where she pleas to you that births continue and there is still beauty in the world.

#raybytheway #melina #elden ring