This Is Adorable And I Love It

This is adorable and I love it 💖

oviraptor mom and her odd-looking but still very good son

I’m the world’s worse advocate for wasps. Everytime I see people repeating bees=nice good pollinators wasps=bad stinging meanies, I face a deep internal struggle trying to explain how they are important to the environment without explaining wasp facts that freak them out in ways they never even thought

i dropped a mcdonalds fry on the floor and before i could pick it up a big ol house centipede emerged from the shadows and started nibbling on it cutely, i guess a centipede would find a salty fry tasty too

it probably liked the oil! I’ve had one of mine nibble on a crumb of cake that fell into his cup.

also someone please draw this

a collection of motivational insights regarding content creation and creative hobbies

and of course the classic

The assiduous Kengliwa

My response to this week’s BestiaryPosting challenge from @maniculum

Was slightly rushed with this one, been trying to get ideas without leaning too hard into what this creature is probably meant to be...

Jinhao shark fountain pen with a fine, hooded nib, with Monteverde Raven Noir ink, over initial pencil sketch.

As ever, reasoning under the cut…

The Kengliwa has three characteristics. The first is that they march in line, each one carrying a grain of corn in its mouth. Those who have none do not say to the others: ‘Give us some of your grain’, but follow the tracks of those who first went out to the place where they find the corn and carry it off to their nest. The Kengliwa’s second characteristic is that when it stores grain in its nest, it divides its supply in two, lest by chance it should be soaked in the winter rains, the seed germinate and the Kengliwa die of hunger. The Kengliwa’s third characteristic is that at harvest time it walks through the crop and finds out by nibbling the ears whether it is barley or wheat. If the crop is barley, the Kengliwa goes to another ear and sniffs it, and if it smells wheat, it climbs to the top of the ear and carries off the grain to its nest. For barley is food for beasts.

Okay, three core characteristics - marches in line, divides grain in two in its nest, and likes wheat, not grain. I can see how if I were to write a bestiary, and especially if I had a handy illustration beside the text, I may also be inclined to focus my writing on the behaviour of this weird critter, rather than its physical description. However, that does not help me work out even remotely what manner of animal the Kengliwa is...

...or does it? Clearly, this is a social animal, that lives in large groups. It's quite risk-averse, but most importantly, it doesn't eat barley, "For barley is food for beasts"...

Silly Kengliwa! Barley is for Beasts!

Now, generalising massively, we can categorise medieval creatures into a number of types; beasts (which live on the land), birds (which generally have feathers, and generally fly, except when they don't), serpents/reptiles (which crawl, including snakes and amphibians), fish (live in the sea) and worms (including insects). We specifically know it isn't a beast (since it turns its tiny nose up at barley), isn't a fish since it's clearly not keen on water, so its a bit of a toss up between serpent, worm or bird. We do know that it lives in a nest though, and you know what else lives in nests? Birds! Bingo!

We don't have any indicator of size, but given that each Kengliwa carries a single grain of wheat in its mouth, I've deduced that they must be pretty small; as amusing as emu-sized critters rampaging through a field would be (for me, not for the farmer...), I don't think that a creature as industrious as a Kengliwa would find carrying a single grain of wheat at a time particularly efficient unless it was pretty tiny!

For the Kengliwa has no knowledge of cultivation; it has no-one to force it do anything; nor does it act under the direction of a master, telling it how to lay in a store of food. Yet it gathers in its harvest from your labours. And although you often go hungry, it lacks for nothing. It has no locked storehouses, no impenetrable security, no piles of supplies which cannot be touched. The watchman looks on at thefts which he dares not prevent, the owner is aware of his losses but takes no revenge. They carry their booty in a black column across the fields, the paths swarming with the convoy as it passes; the grains that cannot be held in their narrow mouths in narrow parts are consigned to their shoulders. The owner of the harvest looks on and blushes with shame at the thought of denying such frugal gains won by such conscientious industry.

I'm getting slightly mixed messages from the author here - the Kengliwa gathers food from others labours, even as they go hungry, but we also have acknowledgement that what it does take is meagre, and we almost have a mote of admiration at the end. If this creature has some kind of religious symbology (and its a medieval bestiary, so changes are, yes...), it's going to be weird...

We also know that it has quite a narrow mouth (which fits with having a beak). I've drawn them carrying the grains on their shoulders/backs (supported in some cases by their wings) when they are making their way through narrow underground tunnels, and beaks when they are outside or maneuvering the grains in their vaults.

We also have a little more details about the colouration... not so useful for me with the (tiny) lineart, but it all helps!

Have a slightly confused looking farmer, observing the Kengwilas as they make off with some grain...

The Kengliwa has also learned to watch out for periods of fine weather. For if it sees that its supplies of corn are becoming wet, soaked by the rain, it carefully tests the air for signs of a mild spell, then it opens up its stores, and carries its supplies on its shoulders from its vaults underground out into the open, so that the corn can dry in the unbroken sunshine. Finally, you will never on any of those days see rain spouted from the clouds, unless the Kengliwa has first returned its supplies of corn to its stores.

Okay, we now know that they keep their grain underground... A bit weird for a bird, but not unknown (we get puffins, burrowing owls, etc, even if some of them do steal burrows from other critters).

Have some underground grain vaults! Note that one of them is higher than the other, so if the nest does get flooded, at least one of the chambers should be okay. I drew the nest in a similar style to the nest of the Rubkawat, though I wonder if these nests are lines more with roots than with twigs...

Yes, I now know more about the difference between wheat and barley than I ever hoped for!

Given that I mentioned my Jinhao shark pen, I figured I should post a picture!

Here's the hooded nib! It's supposed to prevent the ink from drying out in the nib so quickly, as well as preventing inky fingers!

The quality control for the brand, particularly the cheaper pens, can be a little iffy, but most of these pens I've had have written really well. Takes international cartridges but comes with a converter for use with bottled ink. It's also really cute!