...Ideas... But On The Other Hand... Why? Because Fun, Of Course! Additional Fun!

I wonder (have been for a while, just hopping on opportunity) how large the Underland equivalent of Chrotopterus aritus(sp?) or Vampyrum spectrum would be? Assuming they'd likewise scale up and not merely match the size of other fliers, that is.

Also that last image, just, the concept of being able to hug an Aeorestes like that, just aaaaaaa <3 sky fieri

"Bats don't have noticeable muscle-" Me, drawing Ares "That's fascinating, I don't give a fuck."

This. Especially in the wake of the flooding and loss of the Garden. (unless I'm getting the timeline jumbled...) An opportunity for the people of Regalia to contemplate their actions / presence and consideration of 'are we the aggressors here' is abruptly shoved aside / tossed into a figurative dustbin as the majority of their political leadership structure are literally butchered in their own territory. In what they considered safety, as much as there can be in the Underland.

And much later, out of the entirety of the council of Regalia, only Solovet and Vikus survived? Hm.

One of your hottest TUC takes.

Solavet intentionally staged the death of Luxa's parents.

A plushie of a thing

The way the first vespertilionidae (I think... Chalinolobus dwyeri? Or Saccolaimus flaviventris? it doesn't have the frosted tips of Lasionycteris noctivagans, nor the ears of Molossidae sp., and the bat's ventral surface is not visible...) is scrambling, I hypothesize my first/immediate response would probably be 'eek, spider!' followed by opening the distance in whatever direction the critter isn't heading towards. This hypothetical reaction would not apply to #2 bat's movements due to the position of the wings interfering with pattern recognition of 'freaking huge spider'. Wouldn't be long before that reaction shifts to 'oh, it's a bat' followed by impromptu escort mission. protect lil'friend from cats, or humans that might have... less than positive feelings/intentions towards chiroptera.

Outside of such contemplative musings; aww, the lil'bats! Can't ID #2 as it could be any number of brown bat species (or Lasiurus seminolus).

Such adorable lil'dudes. sorta wishin' one could pick them up so they wouldn't be vulnerable on the ground but alas bats are disease/virii reservoirs and doing so without significant/adequate PPE is a very bad idea.

...Made all the more heart-wrenching by how borderline hopeless the future of chiroptera is. Between significant heat events frying megabat/flying fox camps in Australia, white nose syndrome wiping out significant numbers of (certain species of) cave-dwelling bats in North America, and wind farms killing thousands of bats (hundreds of thousands in regards to a certain species; Aeorestes cinereus) per year, a cull that could be drastically - and readily - reduced in mortality if certain protocols were implemented. (Unfortunately, it seems that the hoaries of the American supercontinent are doomed to be sacrificed to the dollar by the wind-energy sector.)

Eyes full of hope, yet little of that remains in the world. And not just for these lil'fluffy nuggets.

Eyes full of Hope

murderfloof rolled a 1 on that check, lol bat's definitely caught red-han-... red-chested? red-faced? red all over, really.

exceptionally creepy. terrifying. (great work!) ... TUC had zero flier antagonists. closest to such could be Ajax, I guess? but, like, that dude got zero characterization other than 'nobody likes him' and being Solovet's bond.

so,, why not have a floof-flier be a malevolent bitch? albeit not to the same scale as the other malevolent bitch that affected damn near everyone in the North American Eastern Seaboard region of the Underland with their machinations, and 'just' limited to those that she might encounter by roaming around.

Hoary bat but underland. Maybe hiding a body beneath her. hoaries sometimes kill and eat smaller bats irl. jus surreptiously extretching her wing to conceal a bloody hand, foot, or limb. expression of who, me?~

dunno name. Who was the Greek bloke with the carnivorous horses? Sisyphus? Typhon? Could be selffulfilling prophecy, girl got a rotten name, shunned for rotten name, succumbed to inner demons or malign thoughts because everybody expected the worst from her so why not?

Possibly unrepentant manipulator. Exploits lack of knowledge or innocent assumptions. Missing people? Oh drat the gnawers got them.

You always ask me to draw such depressing bats 😢

Disturbing image under the cut, you were warned

Krita always de-saturates stuff when I export it (yes I've seen that srgb post going around, no the fix suggested didn't work), so I have to manually re-add the saturation after export. I hope I got the caught in the act feigned innocence expression right. To make the bats as expressive as they are in the books I have to give them binocular vision, larger eyes, and usually brows and eyelashes. It kinda makes them look 30% dog 70% bat. I hope the fur patterns and colors still make the species recognizable.

The worst people who did not learn to love, read a book, meet a neighbor, leave their hometown, study in school, appreciate art, learn an instrument, travel abroad, seek knowledge, reflect on their shortcomings, ask for forgiveness, or work on their insecurities are using a silver-spooned liar and racist bully engorged on resentments to greenlight their cruelty towards people they don't even know.

Fcuk that.

A zine i made for my art class talking about bats and all the facts i know about them!

Okay alright sorry for all the sudden German politics influx but lemme explain what happened so far and why Germans are losing it a bit:

The tldr? Our government is getting a divorce and it's turning messy with elections being called early and now being called even earlier.

The longer version?

Okay so, groundwork first:

in Germany there is a coalition currently in power called the Ampel(traffic lights) bc the colours of the party are red, yellow and green (or not anymore or for much longer??). They're centrist slightly more left leaning than right leaning. (You could argue about that I am aware). There has been infighting for as long as this coalition has been going on. It is also the first three party coalition since y know, the Last Time.

So. Enough groundwork. The yellow party (FDP) has a finance minister (Christiane Lindner) it's this guy

You will see him in memes I am sure. We don't like him. He's an asshole and has blocked every meaningful change that the coalition had been trying to accomplish. He also got his finance plan blocked by our highest court because parts were against our Constitution.

(.... I am oversimplifying hard here it's actually more complicated than that and not fully his fault, but it's also not the focus)

What WAS the fault though of him and the FDP was that they had a strong position of "saving money at all costs" which made bigger and bigger rifts with the two other coalition partners who were more leaftleaning. The war in Ukraine, Infrastructure, climate change - there were many places that needed more money and Lidner was like naaahhhhh for no fucking reason other than "oh we need to save money!!"

Long story short there have been arguing all the fucking time and therefore have started to lose approval. Drastically lose approval. As on for the first time since the Last Time there is a far right party in charge for part of the country that is also being investigated for being Nazis. (Oversimplifying again).

Which is. Worrying. You know. Especially with Trump now being elected. It has us all a little skittish.

The finance minister has also now been fired.

You see. We were all still trying to stomach Trump winning the US election, when Scholz, in the same fucking evening, fired Lindner.

And not in a polite way. Nah. Olaf fucking Scholz our Chancellor, notorious for saying literally nothing, and with a running joke that he regularly stops existing bc that man Does Not Take Stances, a spine of wet cardboard, delivered this yesterday evening:

(English subtitles by me you already got this far watch it I spent too much time on this lol)

And it is insane alright. For his standards and German politic standards thats the equivalent of calling Lindner a egomaniacal bitch that has only his self interest at heart and can not be trusted.

Lindner and his party have been pulverised in all recent elections. Which means that after he was fired, the FDP completely withdrew from the coalition and all minister from the FDP resigned.

....well all but one who apparently stayed in his positions because he's leaving the FDP over this. What sort of shitty backstabbing kindergarten fight is this. (Jokes aside hes the minister of transportation and says he needs to stay in office in important projects. Which. True. Having minister resigning en mass is not good)

Alright cool cool cool cool. Current situation yesterday is the following:

So. Trump is president. Fuck.

Lindner got fired! Yaaay!

Wait my goverment is now also falling apart! Fuck.

Which all lead to new elections being called in Germany.

Mind you, that's not usual ok. I know other countries have systems where they can call an election whenever but that is not a thing that normally happens here. We have a schedule alright. (Insert obligatory "Germans and their plans and structure" joke)

So new elections are called for spring, nearly a year early. Cool cool cool. With a right wing rising in Germany and deeply unpopular current leadership. On the eve of motherfucking trump getting elected.

Habeck, leader of the green party and one of the few policians in germany I think is vaguely liked by ppl (the general attitude in German politics is less "I like this guy" and more "you are the least shitty choice I guess") has appearently also nearly started crying after the news broke. So. Yeah.

Now. Let's make this shitshow complete,alright?

There is this party. CDU. They had been in charge for a very long time in Germany. Centrist, right leaning, with the afd on the rising even more right leaning than before. Their current leader is Friedrich Merz, as unpleasant as human beings can go.

He has now called for the new election to be not in a few months but like. To be called next week.

In the current climate.

So yeah. if you're German mutuals and friends are currently going through their own stages of grief - this is why.