Hiya! Would you be willing to explain why keeping captive right whales is completely nonviable, as you mentioned? I’m fascinated, but the adhd simply will not let me parse scientific papers.

That's a fantastic question! While it would be wonderful if captive breeding were a viable option for this critically endangered species, it just isn't possible under any realistic conditions.

For starters, their size. Orcas are the largest mammals successfully held in captivity, and we all know how difficult (and controversial) that is, with only a very small handful of facilities ever pulling it off with any semblance of success. Tilikum, the largest captive orca (although I believe that record has since been overtaken by a male in China), was 22.5 feet (6.9 meters) long and weighed 12,500 pounds (5,700 kg). Most other orcas in human care, particularly the females, are considerably smaller. Compare that to a northern right whale. Even the smallest adults are over 40 feet long—double Tilikum's length—and weigh 88,000 pounds (40,000 kg)—seven times his weight—while the biggest specimens on record reached up to 61 feet (18.5 m) and an incredible 234,000 pounds (106,000 kg).

A tank for an animal that size would be far beyond anything we have the ability to engineer and maintain. Think of how deep it would have to be for the whale to even turn around! The water pressure would be astronomical, wreaking havoc on the building materials even if it were possible to build the structure. And remember—someone has to dive to clean it! Our theoretical right whale habitat would have to be a sea pen, but even the 100-acre facilities proposed with orcas in mind are nowhere near deep enough. While right whales are considered to inhabit "coastal" waters, they do not live right up by the shoreline, like certain orca ecotypes and other small delphinids. They are a pelagic species, designed to live out in the open water column, as are all baleen whales. So, the pen would have to be a floating habitat miles out into the open water (think of an offshore oil rig), with netting sturdy enough to not be destroyed by a 50 ton whale and long enough to extend hundreds of feet to the ocean floor. We're talking probably thousands of square miles of netting, that would have to be routinely inspected for safety and upkeep. So, you would probably need a submersible, since no human can dive that deep. On top of that, it would be difficult to find such a larger stretch of ocean in their habitat without shipping lanes, underwater noise, or pollution. And let's just forget about the logistics of staffing that place—or worse, funding.

Additionally, we wouldn't be able to feed them by tossing fish into their mouth like with dolphins. Northern right whales feed on tiny crustaceans and zooplankton, cruising along and filtering the creatures from the water with their baleen. Assuming our right whale keepers were somehow able to acquire the insane amount of food the whale requires (potentially over 5000 pounds of zooplankton a day), it would need to be scattered throughout the massive habitat to facilitate feeding. I imagine this would probably look something like the way Georgia Aquarium feeds their whale sharks from a little boat, although on a much larger scale. And since the food obviously can't be kept alive, we would need to develop someway of delivering the daily vitamins that are lost in the freezing process—and to keep hundreds of tons of krill frozen on a floating kitchen in the middle of the ocean.

Of course, the ultimate goal of this project would be to breed northern right whales... that means we need to take everything we just talked about and double it, at a bare minimum. For the breeding program to be successful, it would need a whole lot more than just two whales. And unfortunately, even if we lived in world with magical floating thousand-acre sea pens, unlimited krill, and endless money... we still don't know if it would even work. Right whale breeding habits are poorly understood, with the whales mating in cold northern waters before migrating 1,000 miles south to calve. Despite our best theoretical efforts, these migratory patterns could very well be necessary for successful reproduction.

Thank you again for the ask! This was actually a lot of fun to think about! If you want to read about JJ, the only baleen whale ever successfully housed in (temporary) human care, you can find an article and pictures here.

Oh fuck

Oh fuck

Oh fuck

Remember this??? I put together a lot of pieces suddenly and oh no oh no oh Noe. I wonder why he has the kink in his second neck, eh? Could it just possibly be because Meau got hit by the axe in exactly the same place??? I’m extremely concerned about the possibility that this is why he formed early, because the damage somehow ripped the two of them apart. That seems like, y’know, a very good way to gain one ghost typing. And, y’know, a very good way for Meau to only have properly seen his original shiny form for a brief period of time. Did he “die” from the attack? Is that how he got the ghost typing? Is that why his fur darkened so much? Or even worse, did Meau come so close to death that he split off from her to be her replacement? Is that what his second purpose is? Did he appear early because Meau wasn’t supposed to die yet??? Bucket wasn’t in the picture yet, the universe needed a backup plan and our current backup plan didn’t exist yet. Fuck, our second palkia is shiny to replace the first, dead, normal one. You’ve even teased about the amount of shiny luck in this family. Can you truly tell me that’s not why Noe came out shiny??? I’m sure some of this is wrong, but you’d have to deny it directly for me to let go of the idea that Noe was the backup plan and that’s why he’s shiny like palkia. Quite frankly that has me making other conspiracy theories about Qari and ?????? and the fact that our arceus is shiny potentially meaning that he’s the second fucking arceus, but I’ll leave that for another unhinged ask later. Same with the theory that he got the darkened fur, ghost type, and glitchiness because arceus had to give him a temporary purpose when Meau didn’t die. In the meantime, Noe’s second purpose was absolutely to be Meau 2.0, and he absolutely has the second neck kink because Meau was hit and quite nearly killed in the second neck in the exact same place. The middle part, that’s not certain. How he formed is all kinds of unclear. But damnit, I see things that I really really like for Phlurrii and Fuzzball purposes and really really don’t like for Meau and Noe purposes. I love it to bits and also I’m extremely scared for the cat gods because none of the things I have listed are good things for anyone in front of the 4th wall.

;> wowie, you are barreling in the right direction ain’t ya.

Very impressed, very good deduction skills, there’s a few things in here that Broadly… are basically correct, minus some details here and there X3~

However… one thing I have to confirm because I’m both very excited and very proud you figured it out, Missingno.’s shiny was the first and brief appearance of a shiny mew that Meau witnessed… as for why it was brief, i can’t say as of now! Gotta wait for the in story visuals because that delivery will be eveyrthing X3

I loved reading this and it sincerely made me giggle madly, your first bit has a lot going in the right direction and even a few things just about spot on, later half is in the ball park, but not quite right. Very impressed ;3

Hiya! Given your dark-type lore, how do inkay work? Idk, the adderall hasn’t kicked in yet and my brain latched on.

I figure they have the same mental shield that other Dark types have, even to each other. They communicate through light shows, lol.

Is ss-gh canon?

I would say so!

That's my Pokemon IRL blog for Jamie, btw, to peeps that don't know.

Oh jesus christ level 100? At age 10? When she’s only matched by Fuji (nearly 3x her age) and Garrow (same age but has been an adult for years)?!?! What did they do to her?!?! Poor little one

Do you understand Fuji’s desire to get her to Joyce now?

Plural culture is also telling my therapist “yeah I had a major dissociative episode yesterday but I’m fine now” and not mentioning that it happens relatively frequently such that she doesn’t realize it probably means something

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Singlet ally who wants to say - love your blog, love what y’all do, and I hope I can stay and lurk as long as the blog continues

thank you!! :D

Returning to being a sim blog is absolutely fine, but you’ll keep posting pictures of the little fur potatoes, right? You’ve done such wonderful things for them and I’ve loved following their story, as I know that it’s not super common for our little rodents to end up in homes that treat them as living creatures that need our care. You’re doing great with your little girls and it’s a joy to see them on my dash, so I just hope you won’t stop posting them because people have lost the concept of inside thoughts.

hello lovely!!

i actually never intended to be anything other than a sims blog, i just havent had much time to play! and then i take cute pics of my pets and im like omg my simblr family will love these!! so i share them here!

but yes dont worry, i will never stop posting pictures of my little fur babies, even when i get back to playing the sims!! ❤️

here, have a coco boop

I take it Jamie was named after her dad? (In-universe obviously)

Ey, that's correct! :3

(I like that you threw in the in-universe bit, because indeed I came up with James after Jamie. XD)

Loupy, I want to hearby state that I would be thrilled if you ever chose to continue Shadowed Soul. It’s wonderful and I’d be all for it if you ever wanted to continue, since there’s so much development between the characters we know now and the characters we met 5 years ago. It would be wonderful to see how they’ve gotten here, especially poor Pierce’s character arc. All this to say, I will be very enthusiastic if you tell us the story the way you’d like to be able to do, and whether that’s art or writing it’ll still be tremendous. Maybe your faces were awkward, but your storytelling wasn’t, and I’d be right behind you if you choose to show us where it was going

HYYDDHFKDJDFKL

AAAAAA ;w;

Thank you so much!!

Love that sentence "Maybe your faces were awkward, but your storytelling wasn’t" XD

It's not quite Shadowed Soul, but I'm actually stewing up a Pokemon IRL blog for Jamie. Just something a little slice-of-life blog as if run by her, with help from an in-universe editor, lol. I've been wanting to start a blog centered around her, and Moddy inspired me to attempt that!

And for those who (like me not long ago) don't know what "Pokemon IRL" blogs are, they're-- actually, this asker worded it pretty good.

I'm excited to try it. :3

Okay so wait what happened to half of Jamie’s ear?

A Pokémon got it.

Hey there! Just noticed that neither of the brutus animatics are in the animatic tag on your blog. I managed to find the more recent one here, but I haven’t found the older one yet, which is the one I’m looking for. If I find it before you, I’ll send another ask with the link to that one too. Thanks!

Ohhh thank you!! Dunno how I missed that X3

What would Oops look like if he was paldean? You can choose to draw it or not as you’d prefer, I’d be equally happy with a description, just wooper is my favorite mon by far and I love how much you’ve changed the little guy’s design away from canon, so I’m super curious what you’d do with a paldean one.

The only thing different about this Oops is his appearance. He’d be the same goofy Wooper. Zeus may be a bit more hesitant on asking him to be Callie’s seeing eye mon with the poison typing though

Since Lav and Mewtwo have that mental link now, does that imply that one of them reached out to the other subconsciously? My money’s on Lav wishing she knew her predecessor, since Mewtwo didn’t know she existed, but I also wouldn’t be surprised if feelings of loneliness went the other way too, and Mewtwo had been wishing there were more of the species out there before accidentally making contact with Lav. Either way, great storyline! Keep up the good work! 💐

My thinking is that Mewtwo was just seeing what he could sense/testing his Psychic reach, and Lav “caught” it while she was asleep. So it manifested as a dream.

Plural egg culture is wondering why we answer to our newest d&d character’s name faster than our own

Obviously, we’d introjected Arya and none of us felt super connected to the body name in the first place, but clearly there’s a singlet explanation for this (lol, nope)

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Has lav’s design changed since your original reference for her? She seems to have finger beans now, which she seemingly doesn’t in the original reference but does in the mega reference sheet. I’m not sure if I’m looking at one or more of them wrong though.

Oh my gosh, at first I thought you were talking about her Mega Evolutions "ref". I was about to be very embarrassed. XD

You're correct. She's gained finger beans since the old ref, and has them in the MegaRef. Other than that, though, nothing of note has changed. Aside from maybe getting more fuzzy.

For accuracy, the MegaRef is the best to look at.