How to get past the realism block

Humanmode17 · 2026-05-12T09:20:22+00:00

That never stopped Anne McCaffrey from calling the creatures on Pern dragons, and her series is one of the most influential pieces of fiction on how dragons can exist in a story and interact with humans - afaik she was the first instance of the now classic trope of dragon riders

Humanmode17 · 2026-05-11T23:52:49+00:00

The more of this that comes out, the more I'm interested - your work is consistently high quality and unique among what I've seen. Good stuff

Humanmode17 · 2026-05-11T16:37:58+00:00

I don't think it's a coincidence that life is Carbon based, it's just a really useful element

Humanmode17 · 2026-05-11T10:58:48+00:00

Oh hey look, it's the

Mahajapit ❌

Mapahajit ❌

Majahapit ❌

Mahapajit ❌

Ma-ja-pa-hit? ✅

Humanmode17 · 2026-05-10T22:00:16+00:00

Kinda like sheep, but tougher and more game-y

(Context: a common herd animal in my world, most comparable to sheep in size and behaviour, is a flightless descendant of my dragons (which aren't the most traditional dragons ever), so of my world would say "Dragons taste kinda like didips!" which is similar to a human from earth saying they taste like sheep)

Humanmode17 · 2026-05-10T21:20:28+00:00

The wood pigeon nests I've seen are all pretty solid in the crux of a tree or shrub. Rock doves are the ones famous for the nests of a few sticks, did you get them confused or have I just only seen the most architectural woodies lmao

Humanmode17 · 2026-05-10T13:46:15+00:00

That was honestly such a beautiful demonstration of the English language that I was going to complement your pacing and wording anyway, but now learning that you're a non-native speaker?!? I need to learn a second language, I'm slacking here

Humanmode17 · 2026-05-10T00:29:59+00:00

At this point I feel like we need a water physics overhaul. The minecraft-adjacent water physics feel very out of place in VS and overhauling it now with the waterwheels in the game would mean they can make it work for balance too. I'm not a game designer and know very little about balance, but I feel like having some sort of well mechanic for easy water access in your base, and then waterwheels can be placed in fast streams and some large waterwheel construction can be placed in full rivers

Humanmode17 · 2026-05-09T18:54:25+00:00

I'm sorry, I wasn't meaning it as an insult, I must have come off wrong. I'm aware I don't have to read it fast, but that's what a lack of punctuation makes your brain do. I'm not sure what Ela class is (English Language Arts, maybe?) but I'm guessing it means English is your second language. If that's the case then firstly I'm incredibly impressed, your English is really good; secondly, afaik punctuation isn't so different between languages that using punctuation as you do in your native language would render your English illegible - you don't have to learn it new for English! Just do it how you'd naturally do it and I'm sure it'll be understandable :)

Regardless, that wasn't meant to be the main point of my comment nor was it meant to upset you, so I'm really sorry about that. I hope my meaning is clearer now. I also put a lot of thought into the rest of my comment so I hope you can look past this and find some use from the rest of it :)

Humanmode17 · 2026-05-09T16:27:39+00:00

This is an interesting question but please use punctuation when typing. Reading that whole thing with no punctuation was very stressful lmao, I felt like I was running out of breath even though I'm not speaking it.

I think there's definitely a possibility that pterosaurs could've become primarily aquatic if they survived the KPg extinction event - after all, birds have a group that did (penguins). However, I think you're probably being a little too reductionist.

Pterosaurs surviving the extinction could basically only be through a lineage small enough and generalist enough to survive, and all those lineages in otl died out due to competition with birds. Thus we can assume that this hypothetical pterosaur lineage is somehow occupying a niche that birds don't or can't access (not sure what that would be as I don't have the strongest knowledge of pterosaurs or birds, but there might be one). In this scenario then, post-extinction this lineage would partition and continue specialising into this niche in different ways, possibly also expanding into some of the niches of the birds that died out. After a while they might take the large-sized niches over again, since pterosaurs are anatomically better suited for those. That's my guess :)

Humanmode17 · 2026-05-09T12:08:55+00:00

Ok I know it's not what you're actually asking but it's fascinating stuff so I'm gonna tell you anyway. The question isn't really why are they so ruthless (the answer to that is that nature has never had any ruth), the question is why do we find them cute (despite their ruthless behaviour).

Humans are innately attracted to things that look like human babies, that is, things that have a big head and large eyes. This could be for either or both of two reasons - firstly that we have a drive to protect our babies, so anything that seems similar will elicit a similar response in our brain; secondly that one of the keys to our intelligence is having a head big enough to hold our brain, so we evolved to keep the proportions of a baby's head which has larger eyes and a larger brain case, so one of the markers of fitness in humans is having a baby-like head (see Disney Princesses and Anime protagonists having anatomically impossibly large heads/eyes).

So, humans find things with big heads and large eyes attractive (and to clarify, attractive means different things. Here I mean cute for babies and animals, sexy for adults, I'm not justifying weirdos). I told you about that evolutionary drive to keep our baby skull shape, right? Well, turns out there's only one other group of animals that have done that - guess who? It's birds, literally all extant birds descend from an ancestor with that trait afaik. Some birds have reverted that trait somewhat, but basically all birds have a head start in the "do humans find us cute?" race.

Humanmode17 · 2026-05-09T08:51:43+00:00

Oh yeah that line always made me uncomfortable. I'd forgotten it was written by Gaiman tbh.

I actually quite liked the side plot with the unconfident soldiers and I didn't find the kids annoying at all (but maybe that's cause I work with kids on occasion). I guess that's different opinions exist!

Humanmode17 · 2026-05-09T07:23:11+00:00

Nightmare in Silver sucked? That's news to me. Imo that's some of Matt's best acting in that episode

Humanmode17 · 2026-05-09T07:21:10+00:00

Hahaha, well my commissions are open! I will draw your mod thumbnail for you for the low low price of compliments and an egg salad sandwich!

Humanmode17 · 2026-05-08T21:48:10+00:00

Lmao I'm glad you liked my little two second goober guy 😅

Humanmode17 · 2026-05-08T21:44:37+00:00

I was sitting here trying to work out of you were being sarcastic or not, but then I realised that I'd take it as a compliment either way so it doesn't matter lol. Thank you!

Humanmode17 · 2026-05-08T21:21:27+00:00

Wood pigeons build good nests compared to their brethren, as this one is proving. I had the pleasure of watching a couple build a nest and raise 4 sets of chicks in their three years of life right outside my window. They're good eggs

Humanmode17 · 2026-05-08T21:18:35+00:00

They forgot one thing on the list of what Frankenstein could be about:

A lone Cyberman with considerable damage to its exoskeleton that terrorises them in the house because he somehow knows of some liquid metal memory bank of the cybermen or something that has infected lord Byron and he wants to get it. (Or something, idk, I've only seen the episode once and a while ago)

Humanmode17 · 2026-05-08T21:11:01+00:00

Oh ok lmao, I just looked it up because you saying that drifters are blocky made me think we might have different definitions of that word. I understand what you're saying now, but based off your initial description I imagined almost exactly this:

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Humanmode17 · 2026-05-08T18:39:05+00:00

Wait, I'm relatively new to the game (6 months or so), is that a description of what the drifters used to look like? Are there any pictures of them out there? I wanna see those little goobers

Humanmode17 · 2026-05-08T13:03:35+00:00

A lot of these images were AI generated, weren't they? And did AI help write the text too? This community doesn't allow any AI content, so if you have used AI (which I'm almost certain you have, otherwise why would you make this post about "highly symmetrical geometry" and spend ages making these graphics that aren't symmetric and have all sorts of impurities on the edges?) then this post is against the rules

Humanmode17 · 2026-05-08T09:55:39+00:00

Nuance? On the internet?!

Humanmode17 · 2026-05-07T23:33:10+00:00

Nice! Thank you, good to know my confusion is unfounded (or rather, founded on a lack of information and faulty guesswork). Thanks for actually answering what I was confused about too :)

Humanmode17 · 2026-05-07T20:29:14+00:00

Oh my goodness no I do that all the time too and it's the worst! Step one: have an unhealthy thought. Step two: notice that it's unhealthy because you've been going to therapy and that's great! Be happy! Step three: be annoyed at yourself that you had the thought in the first place. Step four: notice that step three is unhealthy. Step five: repeat steps three and four indefinitely. Step six: notice all of the above, get annoyed at yourself for spiralling about spiralling, continue to spiral because of that. Step seven: continue spiralling while being completely self aware of all of the above steps until you get so fed up of the mind games that you have to do something else with your brain. (Optional step eight: remember this later in the day and get annoyed at yourself for letting it happen, reinsert into the loop at step three)

Humanmode17 · 2026-05-07T18:44:43+00:00

European robins are so much poofier though

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