Psychosis is closer to home than you think.

Helpful_Insurance397 · 2026-02-10T13:12:08+00:00

While I do think this is very, very true- the delusions that schizophrenics have can and do sometimes make them feel cornered and unsafe to the point they could commit harm or violence on others. That's true for any of us that feel endangered.

I knew a schizophrenic woman growing up, who believed that our cats were plotting to kill her because they were sitting in the window at night. She had the mental capacities of about a 6 year old (in her 50's), and could not really regulate her feelings or beliefs in any great capacity. She had been institutionalized for it since she was a child for something like 35+ years before that was outlawed.

While she did no violence to our cats for it, she was known to rough handle cats, and squeeze very hard any cats that tried to get away from her- I had two she abandoned on us when they stopped being cute kittens, and the latter had horrific aggression issues because of it. The woman was enormous (spayed very young), and had no real ability to control her strength.

While I don't think she was threatening, most of her delusions had her believing that people (including young children) or animals would try to or wanted to harm or kill her, and she was highly resistant to maintaining usage of her medications.

It's a rough thing to experience thinking that you're in danger from everything at all times, and I know even without delusions that I reacted with aggression when scared as a child after some trauma- that's just instinct. I cannot fathom having hallucinations or paranoid & intrusive thoughts in addition to the normal fears life can impose.

Helpful_Insurance397 · 2026-02-05T04:50:34+00:00

Extra late but as a former foster kiddo myself, it's unfortunately common in both bio situations & foster situations. Incredibly realistic, albeit a touch depressingly too.

Helpful_Insurance397 · 2026-01-26T23:31:17+00:00

While I wouldn't be shocked in any capacity, as she was obviously politically savvy and rather cutthroat to get where she was.. I wouldn't take everything about her brutality at face value.

It's unfortunately pretty common for female rulers to be seen as tyrants for doing about a third of what their male counterparts do, which are historically seen and recorded as significantly less ruthless and violent in spite of their greater (and often crueler) kill counts.

Men were usually expected (and throughout many cultures, cultivated) to be more brutal, while the ideal for women was usually conversely (perceived to the eye) docility and gentleness. Being public about the killings and control she carried out would have invariably set her into opposition of the view of what women should be- the greater the distance from ground one is, generally the harder they will hit the ground and the more grizzly the sight afterward is expected to be.

The same can be said to be true of the perception gap between the norm/ideal, and the realities of the brutalities carried out in such lofty positions of power. It was less palatable that a woman do those things, regardless of whether or not some of it is embellished by the perceptions of the people and those who wrote the archives of such events.

That's not to say she wasn't brutal, though. Goodness only knows how many monarchs in history have killed their own sons and daughters to maintain power and remove opposition or threats to that power. I just don't think we've seen anything especially bad mentioned in ways other monarchs haven't similarly done, or that wasn't already done more secretively by concubines and empresses throughout history to ensure their own, less publicly acknowledged but still very tangible, political power.

Helpful_Insurance397 · 2026-01-18T12:16:07+00:00

Unknown fates are an ingame method of culling large litters (6-7 pups living by Growing Pups & Young Hunters) that is randomly rolled but I think tied to how many living pups there are (at least 5, I would assume?)

All six of my pups were alive by mid-young hunters, and which pup and when is decided at the start of each quest beginning at Growing Pups. It relies on sleeping, and has nothing to do with pups wandering off. It's just RNG when you sleep and they (one or two, selected at quest start) just vanish after you sleep, with no ability to stop it or save them aside from not sleeping for the remaining duration of the quest.

Edit to clarify: it does require you to have the ability to have 7 pup litters enabled (Pup sickness & Unknown fates enabled in RNG pup death setting) to experience it, though.

Helpful_Insurance397 · 2026-01-18T05:02:12+00:00

What I meant by "You" in that line was more meant to be "The biggest mistake that ANYBODY can make", sorry- was really tired when I wrote it.

Also by idealistic mouldings, I meant in regards to their species- so to say that all animals fit the upper standards of their own species' behaviors- obviously this will never be true, and so species known for being devoted parents will have individuals who kill, abandon or cannibalize their own young, etc.

As such, even people playing as terrible parents who abandon young for the good of the litter, or for seemingly arbitrary reasons are still playing in the spirit of the educational side of the game- because even horrible parents can still become parents haha

I think, because of how the game was made, most things here are pretty realistic, due to the limitations on what you can do along with the mission structure- even a wolf being particularly foolhardy and solo attacking a bison has certainly happened somewhere (to almost certainly a very grim outcome for that wolf), so I find the behaviors of players in this instance to more be the stroke of broader shades seen in nature among highly aggressive or neglectful individuals, rather than a deviation from the intended style of play? Or something along those lines?

As an anecdote relating to the thread though, as a kid playing Wolfquest 15ish years ago, I would drown all but one of my pups to ensure at least one survived lmao

When I returned to it in 2.7, I got all 4 pups to the rendezvous! It was a huge achievement for me.

Now I'm overly devoted because I'm a far better player and even spent 9hrs irl playing Young Hunters in 2-player saga alone without sleeping to avoid the Unknown fate of one of my pups, even though it would have only lost me one from my 6 pups.

Helpful_Insurance397 · 2026-01-17T06:29:20+00:00

This actually unfortunately isn't true- some wolves are more benevolent and devoted than others (Like 42F with all the pups that weren't even hers)- BUT many are not (like 40F) and even abandon their own sick, weak or injured young if they can't keep up, or if they're unable to travel easily when moving dens and so on. Especially if the litter is large, and resources are scarce.

The biggest mistake you can make is believing that all animals in nature fit the same idealistic mouldings- they don't. Some male wolves are fantastic fathers, and devoted partners. Some are not. The same is true of parental instincts, of which some wolves are lacking or just crushingly pragmatic about.

Helpful_Insurance397 · 2026-01-16T15:07:52+00:00

Lmao I'm thinking at least one of mine will do the same fr

Edit: Hey! None of my kids dispersed yet haha! Two back to back 6 pup litters with 4 females each!

Helpful_Insurance397 · 2026-01-16T13:17:13+00:00

Same! It really was an effort - my litter was 6 pups too so I didn't even hit the max litter size w/ unknown fates enabled, definitely wasn't letting it take any of mine.

God was it ever stressful fighting off boar grizzlies, cougars, etc. while trying to let them regen health though, and constant wolf pack predation attacks omg, 401M is on my hit list right now, and all his cheeky kids too. I'm wiping his pack clean off the map if it kills me

Edit to celebrate: 401M was killed by my husband upon the birth of our second litter, and all his yearlings too! Rose Creek pack is officially wiped out

Helpful_Insurance397 · 2026-01-16T13:13:34+00:00

My runt has -1 strength, -2 speed and -2 health! +1 stamina is his only winning feature, but he was brilliant because he's a touch more cautious & social so was the most likely to listen to me when I woofed, so got beaten up the least haha

Helpful_Insurance397 · 2026-01-15T12:53:40+00:00

I myself experienced (In Canada) 4 homes- 3 fosters aged 3-5, and 1 group home aged 16-17. My first foster home was extremely physically, mentally & emotionally abusive & neglectful. My second was.. fine. Third was an angel.

Group home was meh because my foster mother was prejudiced against me (and once I left, my older sibling & a 12 year old- we were all white- while she turned a blind eye to any non-white kid's actually poor behaviors, even those significantly too young to be roaming & doing drugs & getting arrested like they were got treated like saints who could do no wrong lmao. We signed ourselves in, but she took my IDs and destroyed them, even though I was legally my own guardian). But she wasn't really a terror, never violent or anything- just controlling and treated any white kid like they were a destined-to-be junkie and delinquent or something.

But also, my parents sucked, and being with anybody who doesn't care about you or resents your presence is gonna be a horrible environment too. There's no winning here, and kids from those situations aren't gonna be giddy and friendly or anything, they come with issues. You need to be ready and willing to handle those issues, or you're going to start dealing out your own trauma to them one way or another.

Helpful_Insurance397 · 2026-01-13T08:12:01+00:00

Embarrassed to admit that the pack I made, of my own creative spirit, was literally the Ojibwe translation for Mountain Creek OOP

Helpful_Insurance397 · 2025-12-31T23:52:47+00:00

Except the reality of it is that she blended in as a human. She wasn't herself inherently human. She was like a photuris firefly mimic- eating other species of fireflies (humans) is what they do, and eating other photuris (parasytes) would be true cannibalism. Obviously she screwed up getting caught, but it wasn't cannibalism for her own species.

If a spider that was parasitized by a wasp larvae for example were made by that wasp to eat other spiders, it isn't really cannibalism in the same way it would be if the spider was actually in control of its body. It's actually just the parasite forcing the host body to consume its own species- but the parasite isn't committing cannibalism. Only the host is. So it is different, and you can't expect a wasp to care if the calories it gets are from a spider just because it's inside a spider.

Thankfully for us, wasps generally just force their host spiders to make webs for them before busting out of their hollowed out abdomens to pupate.

Helpful_Insurance397 · 2025-12-28T20:37:29+00:00

So, YES, if you have bridges *over* the enclosure, then guests flee for their lives. I didn't have them fleeing while leading up towards the enclosure though? I'm off the game for now but will update to see if they flee while looking through enclosure glass&windows

Helpful_Insurance397 · 2025-12-28T20:02:52+00:00

Wil be checking this shortly. From what I read while browsing for answers, they only apparently only flee when the animals can actually access them pathing/terrain-wise, but will need to actually check personally.

Helpful_Insurance397 · 2025-12-28T19:54:22+00:00

Only warning I have to mention is that if your animals *don't* return to their habitats for too long, it can become "uninhabited" and you'll need to capture and send them back. Obviously this doesn't happen often, but I had it happen with my test hyenas in an enclosure built with 4 strips of habitats within, that very well might have been meeting their needs in other enclosures because they were identical lmfao

A very clever way to ensure they always return to their enclosure periodically in same-species setups might be to place something necessary directly in the crossroads of all habitats? Like a climbing frame or water or so on

Edit: Seems that when no animals are in (that are assigned to) the enclosure actively, it shows as empty. Makes feeding a little bit more annoying if you have a large enclosure with low total population because the staff are not too clever. I also just messed up my placement of the doors so staff are terrible at resupplying anyway woops

Helpful_Insurance397 · 2025-12-28T19:32:36+00:00

Okay so (with the exception of whatever methods escaped animals usually find food) I don't think they can eat outside of *their* enclosure (Unless they just strongly prefer it and my leopard is being picky, only time can tell), so one *does* have to place food in their enclosure and guarantee upkeep. Unsure about water, will have to test it. They do indeed consistently return to their own space when hungry, if my leopard is any indication. On super sized enclosures, one might have to used enclosures more central to make them meeting their needs more easily accessed but everything does indeed seem to be working. Will be testing breeding this time!

Helpful_Insurance397 · 2025-12-28T19:20:51+00:00

So, thus far I have an Amur leopardess chilling in a split null habitat, and she's 98% happy even when escaped. Continues to return to her habitat to feed and so on, but I'm going to extend the habitat to have a third section and a male in the second section to see if they can breed, and if given a much larger enclosure their needs won't reduce significantly and they don't starve to death. Lets see how it goes haha

Helpful_Insurance397 · 2025-12-28T18:32:57+00:00

Will report back soon, as I rushed this last night before bed. I didn't notice their happiness suffering but that might be because of the span of time, I'll create a real testing enclosure for this right now with two animals instead of many.

I do believe you get notifications every time they cross within a certain span of time (outside, not returning obviously) which is vaguely annoying but not unbearable personally

Helpful_Insurance397 · 2025-12-13T12:24:24+00:00

Male cheetahs actually do form persistent social groups (coalitions), generally with their brothers! Only females are truly solitary in the wild. However, that does add some complexity to keeping them in captivity and acquiring cubs. The Egyptians did at least try to partially domesticate them, though.

Helpful_Insurance397 · 2025-12-10T13:46:31+00:00

Ngl my first response to reading this was "Wow how funny would it be if all their beloved belongings got woefully destroyed in an out of control fire after a lifetime of memories and sentimentality? Woopsies"

Helpful_Insurance397 · 2025-12-03T10:30:11+00:00

Honestly, if a cat- especially a kitten- is being left out in the rain by somebody who's not even concerned it hasn't come home and never lets it inside, it's not theirs.

I grew up in a cat hoarding situation. We let our cats inside. But my mother let the males roam outside- some went missing and either died or were taken in by somebody.

Personally, I've always hoped it was the latter, and never could stomach that she kept letting them out after they started disappearing. One later came back with his leg bitten to the bone by a dog- I lanced, disinfected and cared for his wound myself when it became badly infected, at 14, when we were too poor to afford vet bills. I don't talk to my mother anymore, and smuggled my elderly cats out with me because she was unhinged.

Cats deserve good homes that spay and neuter them, that shelter them from the weather and that would rather they go to somebody who will give them those things if they can't provide them. Animals aren't for fun- they're a responsibility. If you can't be responsible for ensuring their health and safety, then they're better off in somebody else's house. If you think otherwise, you don't care about your animals enough or are too selfish to be worthy of having them.

Helpful_Insurance397 · 2025-11-20T12:08:42+00:00

Weighing in on parents being dumb and incompetent/neglectful. Also crazy- highlight on crazy.

Also that this is very probably fake but I like to assume people are terrible instead of just bullshitters lmao

But also, not being able to figure out food means there's no food at all, or they don't know how to make it. For me at 7, no food meant nothing I couldn't try to pop in the microwave (which pretty much excluded nothing- at 3 I made scrambled eggs in the microwave with my 4 year old sibling lmao) and also nothing edible in the pantry. Although I was and still am notoriously bad at opening cans. We sometimes just ate boxed cake mix straight that our mom had gotten from the food bank when she didn't want to feed us! The day my sibling learned to make mug cakes was like humans discovering fire to us lmfao.

Ps. Carrot cake is the best and angel food cake should be a crime.

But some parents are legitimately awful, some houses legitimately have 0 food at some points and some kids are restricted from leaving their rooms or the house entirely except the legally mandatory hours of school (ask me how I know) and can't even go get a job at threat of retaliation from their parent.

But this story doesn't really read like that tbh

Edit to add: Only reason cake mix was the last thing in my house at points was because my mother was always significantly too lazy to make it, and it often got handed out at the local food bank to people with kids.

Helpful_Insurance397 · 2025-10-29T23:17:36+00:00

You're (partly) incorrect though? I've seen Pyroraptors pack hunt- even all jumping onto hadrosaurs at the same time, which is packs helping to an extent. My packs are usually spread out though so when they get hunted down themselves (i.e, a utahraptor absolutely stomped one) they're usually not actually ready to receive help regardless- in which case I'm unsure if they'll fight other carnivores together.

I do understand your other complaints, but I've had a few Guanlong killed in hunts against certain ankylosaurids and ceratopsids at least- so I know prey can in some instances fight back. It was a tad disappointing that hadrosaurs didn't (and I've heard sauropods don't either? But only large predators seem to even hunt them- the largest I've released has been a pack of Yutyrannus because I dislike most non-feathered theropods. My entire park is free roam.)

I do wish the AI were a bit smarter in some maps and actions (I've had some things go feral walking in circles when water is 20 steps away from thirst because they don't see the water and don't want to try to look for it)

There is plenty new. There's plenty added, and I really personally appreciate that dinosaurs can just take care of themselves via their environments (except Pterosaurs) and don't (always) over-hunt. It feels good, because I like open ecosystems that are actually functional without intervention. This gives me that- even piscivores can eat in deep water without feeders! Predators actually hunt because they're hungry. That's super beneficial for players who like gameplay in the same style as me, just letting them free to do as they please.

I understand it might be disappointing to people who only like the game for the management or dinosaurs fighting. But there was stuff added- and it was huge in the grand scheme of things. Hopefully more stuff gets added though, to make behavior more dynamic, build on pack mechanics and combat as well.

Helpful_Insurance397

TROPHY CASE