. . .

There’s no stated reason. They just pretend to not be alive. We usually can suspend our suspension of disbelief here because when it’s something like a video game or an emoji because any odd occurrences is perceived as a glitch or something similar but the actual reason why they aren’t too hung up on this kinda shitty lot in life isn’t said

They get something out of their current relationship with humans (like in toy story)

They have some specific reason to hide that they’re alive, like they die if they’re seen (like in the christmas toy)

They perceive themselves as sentient, talking creatures, but humans can’t understand them. They just see a squeaking mouse or an inanimate hot dog or whatever. 

and the last one is what most animal movies do, and it’s like, not devoid of weird implications but you can see where it mostly works.

but barnyard is the outlier here: it goes with tier one: the animals can talk and walk on two legs but just pretend that they can’t for unstated reasons. 

in the history of the barnyard world non human animals, at some point, decided to just pretend to be unable to speak. a “cow” or a “coyote” or a “hen” do not exist as we know it in the barnyard universe. the baa of the sheep is false; the ewe doesn’t understand it either. they only made up that noise to hide the fact that they speak human languages. a dog barking and running on all fours is a facade. animals naturally walk on their hind legs and made up whole postures just to appear non sentient.

and for what? what do they gain from this? they have no rights and no voice by their own choice. at one point a donkey claims the farmer is a good person because he’s vegan and a pig mentions bacon - this is not a fantasy universe devoid of death and misery and meat. do animals, in hushed whispers, remind their children not to sob in their real voice as they’re taken away? do the dogs not beg for kindness when they’re tied up and hit? do cows and chickens not cry for their life in the slaughterhouses? does a rat not scream a human scream when the trap misses their neck and only breaks their spine? Why? what is the point? They loose so much and have everything to gain.

anyways does everyone remember this really awful cat. it only appears in one scene but i can just sense the porn of it that would pop up if i googled it’s name

JAMES BAXTER:

So according to Amazon (https://www.amazon.com/La-Z-Boy-Calvin-Reclina-Rocker-Recliner-Granite/dp/B0788C6XXC) a comparable armchair weighs approximately 80 lbs. The 3.5 Monster Manual (pg. 270) lists a cats physical statistics at Str 3, Dex 15, Con 10 (obviously Garfield’s Int, Wis, and Cha far exceed the average cat).

The carrying capacity rules in the Player’s Handbook (pg 162) state that tiny creatures’ numbers and divided by two, and that a creature can drag an object 5 times their carrying capacity with difficulty. Judging from the scale of this strip, since Jon is a Medium creature, Garfield qualifies as a Small creature, reaching just below Jon’s waist. Let’s face it - Garfield is no Tiny cat. Therefore the amount Garfield can drag is a light load, multiplied by five since it is being dragged, but the total score is ¾ the medium amount because of his size.

With these statistics in mind, Garfield’s relative strength in order to move the chair (rounded down) is 7, almost quadruple the average strength of an average cat. However, this does not account for Jon’s weight. On page 109, a male human’s weight is given as a base of 120 with a total range of 124-280, using the maximum and minimum rolls given for height and weight. We’ll say Jon is 198 lbs, the exact middle of this range.

artemis fowl movie: