December Meme Post 3
Dec. 16th, 2013 10:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
krait...Post 2 hasn't happened yet, but it will. *wry*
Today's (okay, yesterday's) prompt was fromtropicsbear: "Why snakes?"
Right off the bat: I am a biology geek, so naturally I love a whole lot of critters, snakes among them. I like the way they move (you try getting around with no limbs, just by contracting your belly muscles!), they way they look (long and slim, smooth yet subtly textured, the diversity of colour and pattern that goes far beyond what us sad mammals can manage, the contrast of stillness and lightning motion), the fact that so unlikely a creature is so widespread as to be found in environments ranging from deathly deserts to under the sea.
I mentioned colour; as a creative person who loves colourful things, snakes rule! Snakes are among the Orders that can produce my favourite colours: greens and, especially, blues are pretty rare in vertebrates, relatively speaking! (Birds get the lion's share; this may be part of why I'm a birder, heh.) Think about the aliens you've seen in movies: chances are good they're blue, or they bleed blue, or green. It's not a colour range that we instinctively associate with ourselves; there's something a bit alien about a life form that's patterned in teal, even though it developed on our planet. Snakes, especially, have that hint of the alien about them; many people have a deep aversion to reptiles, or an uneasy fascination, because for vertebrates they're about as foreign to us as things come: horizontal, legless, level with the earth, cool-skinned, hard, solitary, suterranean (or even subaqueous), predatory, voiceless. As someone who really likes biology, and who loves to speculate about alien biology, snakes make a pretty natural interest point.
Then there's fandom -- I entered fandom (in a coherent/single-identity form) under a snake-based pseuodym, and I wanted to keep the theme going when I changed names. At the time of that first naming, my primary fandom was Harry Potter, and the snake was a conscious reference to "my" House as well as making for a handy nickname and acronym. I wanted a name that pointed to Slytherin, but at the same time wouldn't be too tightly bound to one particular fandom, since nothing lasts forever and I was bound to move on at some point.
In sum: snakes are cool, and they're pretty, and they're surprisingly good survivors despite having none of the things my own species would consider advantages. They do important, if undervalued, work in their ecosystems, and they provide a brush of unknowable mystery to the humans who encounter them in the wild. They have a fearsome grip on the minds of many, yet most are timid or even mellow -- I keep one as a pet! I'm honoured to let one be my representative in the "ecosystem" of fandom.
Today's (okay, yesterday's) prompt was from
tropicsbear: "Why snakes?"Right off the bat: I am a biology geek, so naturally I love a whole lot of critters, snakes among them. I like the way they move (you try getting around with no limbs, just by contracting your belly muscles!), they way they look (long and slim, smooth yet subtly textured, the diversity of colour and pattern that goes far beyond what us sad mammals can manage, the contrast of stillness and lightning motion), the fact that so unlikely a creature is so widespread as to be found in environments ranging from deathly deserts to under the sea.
I mentioned colour; as a creative person who loves colourful things, snakes rule! Snakes are among the Orders that can produce my favourite colours: greens and, especially, blues are pretty rare in vertebrates, relatively speaking! (Birds get the lion's share; this may be part of why I'm a birder, heh.) Think about the aliens you've seen in movies: chances are good they're blue, or they bleed blue, or green. It's not a colour range that we instinctively associate with ourselves; there's something a bit alien about a life form that's patterned in teal, even though it developed on our planet. Snakes, especially, have that hint of the alien about them; many people have a deep aversion to reptiles, or an uneasy fascination, because for vertebrates they're about as foreign to us as things come: horizontal, legless, level with the earth, cool-skinned, hard, solitary, suterranean (or even subaqueous), predatory, voiceless. As someone who really likes biology, and who loves to speculate about alien biology, snakes make a pretty natural interest point.
Then there's fandom -- I entered fandom (in a coherent/single-identity form) under a snake-based pseuodym, and I wanted to keep the theme going when I changed names. At the time of that first naming, my primary fandom was Harry Potter, and the snake was a conscious reference to "my" House as well as making for a handy nickname and acronym. I wanted a name that pointed to Slytherin, but at the same time wouldn't be too tightly bound to one particular fandom, since nothing lasts forever and I was bound to move on at some point.
In sum: snakes are cool, and they're pretty, and they're surprisingly good survivors despite having none of the things my own species would consider advantages. They do important, if undervalued, work in their ecosystems, and they provide a brush of unknowable mystery to the humans who encounter them in the wild. They have a fearsome grip on the minds of many, yet most are timid or even mellow -- I keep one as a pet! I'm honoured to let one be my representative in the "ecosystem" of fandom.
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Date: 2013-12-17 12:46 pm (UTC)Also! http://buddhistbatbear.tumblr.com/post/50336109295
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Date: 2013-12-18 01:54 am (UTC)I actually think most boids and pythons are kinda ugly overall - their shape/proportions, I mean, since there's no denying they win all the prizes for "best colours" among wild species - but yeah, they're not intimidating or alarming. Well, unless you're trying to imagine picking up one of those 400-lb specimens. :D
Your friend's pet may have been a corn snake; they're generally small (and often purchased when very small!) and popular as "first snakes" because they're plentiful and inexpensive; they're also very colourful, with quite probably over 100 colours and patterns to choose from, including many that are yellow!
They are all so pretty. :D