Gabu!! ☁️ ΘΔ

This is Geo Atlas! They're a big (around 8-10 feet tall, or 2.4 - 3m) inflatable mascot dragon! For a water park, despite their looks. They're, also not really the normal kind of inflatable you'd expect to find at a water park, more the kind you'd find in a parking lot... There's a story there (see under the read more!)

I'm tentatively considering Geo a sona of sorts, although a different brand of sona from the rest... less a "me as an X" sense and more a "this is a form that'd be fun to be" sense. Sona for entertainment and fun rather than introspection. Technically this makes its full name "Sofsh Geo Atlas" but I did something funny with that...

Geo was originally designed as a mascot for an ill-fated public broadcasting show going over various forms of internet safety for kids in the mid 2000s: "Surfing Online! Finding Safe Harbors: The Internet Traversed with Geo Atlas!" (often shortened to "SOFSH") Although it reached quite far in production, and even began the creation of advertising materials, including this physical Geo Atlas, its initial release was delayed as it was determined the initial run of episodes contained egregious mistakes, or information that had recently become uselessly outdated. During the stretch of production following the delays, sponsorships for websites to cover fell through, requiring rapid pivots in material until the studio creating the show went bankrupt before it could air a single episode. In an attempt to recoup lost costs, the Geo Atlas IP and the promotional materials were sold off, and when an executive half heard about a big inflatable mascot from an IP about "surfing," Geo soon found itself working for a water park.

The employees at the water park, fully aware that this dragon with a clear internet theming was a poor fit for a water park, and fully aware the higher ups did not care, wisely decided to make Geo the mascot of the water park's website, and had more traditional, water themed mascots designed for the main areas of the park. As for the inflatable Geo Atlas, it was stationed near the rental store in view of the splash pad, where there's free wifi.

Also its fully animate, aware, sentient, etc. but that's not weird. That just happens to mascots. All the pooltoys shaped like the other mascots at the park are also like this. Its fine.

As you can see from the sketchpage above (where I doodled out this design, enjoy alternate proto-Geos), the most noticeable part of its design is the globe on its tail, which can change in size! Although, not quite deliberately... There's an air pump near where the tail connects to the globe (the south pole) which can be turned on, which will gradually inflate the globe to ever increasing sizes, and eventually deflate the globe once it gets too big to hold. This was meant to be used as part of a demonstration, metaphorically showing how the internet can both expand the world available to you to daunting sizes, but also make the whole world small and manageable. Originally, this was planned to happen over a 15 minutes while a video played in the background, although physical constraints forced it to take 30 minutes. As such, the globe would need to start partially inflated, having been inflating 15 minutes before the video began in order to sync up. However, having in no scenario been planned to be stationed at a water park, this air pump was not made to be water proof, so it was haphazardly covered with waterproof tape in an effort to prevent damage. This fixed the issues with water, but drastically lowered the rate of air intake now that the valve was covered with tape, making it take nearly 2 hours to fully inflate, and another hour to deflate. The tape also makes the controls harder to use, especially so when you're a big inflatable whose fingers are about the size of the entire control panel and would smoosh out before exerting enough force to press a button. As such, when it turns on, Geo doesn't have much choice but to wait for it to run its course (it doesn't quite mind, and technically even though its never supposed to be turned on, Geo's also not supposed to turn it off because its a good attraction for rambunctious kids, although that doesn't keep it from trying at times)

Much like the namesake of its second name, Geo Atlas is required to maintain a grip on the globe at all times while its inflating. The reasoning was to demonstrate how unwieldy the internet can be at times. Wanting the struggle to be "real," Geo failing to do so will magically¹ replace enough of the air with helium to suspend them a few feet off the ground until it fully deflates. If nothing gets in Geo's way, and its actively trying, it can usually manage to get really close to keeping a grip on the maximum size, and even manages to hold on for the full cycle on occasion, but frequently it loses its grip sometime along the way and has to dangle there for an hour or so, unable to do much.

Despite its rather odd circumstances and frequent precarious situations, Geo can't complain too much. It was made to entertain children, and its still doing so, even if it's in an unfitting environment. And the employees and fellow mascots are nice to it, even if somewhat limited in ability to change its situation. It does sometimes wish it fit in a bit better, that it could join in with playing in the water with the other park mascots, but it doesn't mind too much... and sometimes sneaks into the play areas after hours anyway.

Oh, this is covered by the globe in the main photo, but it does have an MP3 player. To appeal to kids, and show that its trendy! It even works too, and can connect to the wifi to download sound files, despite being as inflatable as Geo is. As such, Geo often passes the time listening to music and podcasts it downloads.

1. Sometimes magic just has to do it okay?