Fluchtsalat

May I present the best apple:

But doesn't LIKE his fellow man. Or woman. He tries, but he really just can't help but feel annoyed by most of the people he is trying to lead against the system (or liberate from it) and feels slightly superior to most of them.

He settle on wanting to free his fellow man or woman from an evil Empire because he likes and respects England even less than he likes and respects his fellow man.

Which is valid btw but it's fun how he genuinely only likes and respects a max of five people in the whole show, and yet he still says things like "I can't believe we are so poorly made as that."

Yes you believe that in your daily life, that's why you can't open up with anyone and you can’t stop treating them as your politically, morally and intellectually inferiors!

I think it's fascinating that in abstract he believes in the inherent goodness of humanity and the idea that in a more equal and less corrupted society, people would not oppress each others for fun and history would be a journey though progress; in concrete he thinks that every person he interact with is dumber than him and need to be manipulated and convinced to do exactly what he thinks is the right thing to do, with very fews exception of two or three people he considers as smart and morally righteous as himself.

What a funny character.

🏳️‍🌈 my first pride artwork this year 🏳️‍🌈

No pairing was requested as often as Catradora. And I’m actually quite surprised that I’ve never created fan art for this fantastic series.

HAPPY PRIDE! 🌈

we are ALSO insanely good at smelling rain (specifically geosmin, found in the soil and activated by rain) with the ability to smell 10 parts per trillion. this is speculated to have helped our ancestors survive!

we ALSO have absolutely batshit diets compared to most other animals. caffeine and chocolate are completely toxic to most animals but we can eat it without even feeling sick. even avocados are severely toxic to many animals to the point where it can be fatal to eat, but humans love it!!!

we are ALSO some of the best endurance runners ON EARTH out of ANY other species. we can beat horses in endurance running. you know, the animals that gradually evolved away most of their toes in order to be the best runners?? yeahhh.

and to top it all off. our lifespan is unusually long for our species' weight/mass. in many cases, the bigger a species is, the longer its average lifespan (e.g. domestic mice live for 1-3 years, bowhead whales can live over 200) but we're very small for how long our average lifespan is. big cats like tigers live around 14-15 years, brown bears 25 years, yet here we are expected to live around 75-85 years. that is NUTS.

😔

If you would like to join me on this long and patient llama hunt, I have prepared a crude map of the terrain so you can get your bearings. We are starting on the road right next to the neighbour's barn.

My first instinct was to resolve the situation through diplomacy. If the animals wanted to slightly broaden the grazing perimeter, well, okay; I could let them eat on the side of the road. Unfortunately, only Pirlouit supported this plan.

He kept trying to stop and eat, while the llamas had places to go.

So I followed them along the road for quite a while, patiently waiting to reach the wider stretch where I knew I could sprint ahead, overtake everyone and force them to turn around. Not yet a full victory but at least I'd feel like I was regaining some influence over events.

But Pampérigouste is familiar with my manoeuvres, and she turned around of her own initiative before we reached this spot, left the road, and led everyone into the woods for a bit (and almost managed to shake me off as I kept getting slowed down by brambles, being the only person in this situation who was wearing clothes); then she re-emerged on the road near the barn, and went into the neighbour's pasture. Which is quite vast, and goes all the way down to the torrent.

So naturally, Pampe went all the way down to the torrent—following a route of astonishingly unnecessary complexity and glancing back now and then to check that her followers had not lost faith.

The other animals clearly felt that once you've reached a vast and lush pasture, the logical next step is to stay and eat (while Pampe sees it as evidence that vaster and lusher pastures remain to be discovered.)

... that is, until we reached the torrent and I finally managed to turn everyone around, back in the direction of their pasture. At that exact moment, Pampe realised grazing was an urgent priority.

Once we finally reached the road, with Pampe bringing up the rear at an aggressively leisurely pace, I figured that if I got the rest of the herd back in their pasture, she would grudgingly follow.

I was wrong.

The other animals briefly hesitated (it was getting late; their pasture was right there; they don't like spending the night in unfamiliar places) before recommitting to Pampe.

We could have actually followed the road in this direction all the way back to my house, and therefore the other, upper gate to their pasture, bringing this expedition to a neat and peaceful conclusion. Pampe solved this problem by throwing herself into the woods.

At this stage I feel that my updated map will be more informative than human language.

(I made an attempt to restore coherence to our journey through the use of directional arrows.)

When we somehow ended up back in the neighbour's pasture after an exciting (not for me) chase through the woods, I admitted defeat, and texted my neighbour to let him know my animals would be spending the night in his pasture due to circumstances not meaningfully under my control, but I would be back on the case in the morning to get them home. Having met Pampe, he didn't ask any further questions.

I didn't really believe that the animals might magically return on their own during the night, but still I left the pasture gate open—but only the one near my house; the other gate by the neighbour's pasture remained closed because I just couldn't face the slope again.

And somehow, the next morning, when I opened my window, everyone was here.

I should add that my neighbour later found several tufts of llama wool caught on his fence in various places, allowing us to partially reconstruct the llamas' return journey (that's me in the background attempting to get a statement from his cow.)

I have therefore updated my map once more to illustrate (in green) the final stage of this expedition, based on physical evidence and on my partial understanding of Pampe's worldview.