i said it was my favorite piece of media that i’ve hyperfixated on since the tender age of 12 and have not let go of since. i didnt say it was a Good piece of media
“what do you like about it so much?” the fact that it cocooned me like a tender wool blanket during my vulnerable teenage years. next question
today’s the day
happy assorted cheese day
CLADISTICS ruined my life
yall joke but this is actually a serious conundrun with cladistic-based classification
The choice is this:
Birds are reptiles
Or crocodilians (and probably turtles) ARENT
That’s it, that’s the choice
What if Bird and reptiles are two different things that came from the same thing
Nope
Because you can’t group (lizards, snakes, tuatara, turtles, crocodilians) without also including (birds)
So if you don’t want to include birds in reptiles then you have to leave out some things we’ve called reptiles
birds are dinosaurs though, full stop. we’ve already defined what a dinosaur is and it includes birds. but reptiles isn’t really defined so much as thrown against a wall angrily.
But don’t turtles and alligators have more in common with modern reptiles than modern birds have in common with modern reptiles? I’m not trying to contradict, I’m trying to understand. Mammals and reptiles have a common ancestor as well, but we do not make them the same group.
It’s not about having things in common. It’s about common ancestry, which is how we classify animals in light of extinct species, which defy trait-based classification.
And, the common ancestor of [lizards, snakes, tuatara, turtles, crocodilians] by definition is also the common ancestor of birds. It is NOT the common ancestor of mammals.
So, either we decide that Tuatara Lizards and Snakes are the only reptiles, or we include birds as reptiles. Or we just decide reptiles are no longer a thing.
don’t throw reptiles against the wall? please? some of them are small and delicate. you could hurt them.
Basically, unless we’re maybe talking massive horizontal gene transfer, everything is still part of the group that came before it.
You are technically a fish.
IIRC the fish thing is so frustrating that scientists have decided fish is just not real cladistic grouping at all
hey could we go back please to the bit where the closest relative of Birds is Crocodiles? bc I am alarmed
Well, technically they’re equally-closely related to crocodiles, alligators, gharials and tomistomas. As archosaurs, they’re all descended from small reptiles that looked something like this
The two main groups of archosaurs are the Pseudosuchia, or crocodile-line archosaurs, and the Ornithodira, or bird-line archosaurs. Both groups were massively diverse in prehistory, with the Pseudosuchia dominating most land-based niches in the Triassic, and the Ornithodira, especially the dinosaurs, doing the same during the Jurassic and Cretaceous. However, most of them have been wiped out due to the Triassic and Cretaceous mass extinctions, leaving them each with only one surviving clade: Aves, the true birds, and Crocodylia, the semiaquatic, ambush predators like crocs and gators.
This entire post sums up everything we’re not allowed to mention in our Vertebrata classes because the last time someone started that argument they had to break up a fistfight.
drew fanart of 1600 yr old octopus from a mosaic bc it was good
"Life starts all over again when it gets crisp in the fall."
Hi, hello! Here’s a fresh set of hi-res phone wallpapers from some of my recent illustrations — as always, they’re free for personal use ♡
Hm. Your interpretation of this character displeases me. Guards! Take them away! Make them read the source material once more, and if that fails, the stocks.
The ballot box is closed, the votes have been counted, and it is time once again for authors to be unmasked! We are incredibly grateful to the 30 authors who wrote 117,556 words across 41 fics for this round of TUA Masked Author. Among the 3MA authors, we were privileged to have an amazing eighteen authors who were new to the event (including three authors who took the plunge of publishing fics for the first time!), our first collaboration, seven second-time submitters, as well as five dedicated authors who have taken part in all three rounds. The fics they wrote made us laugh, cry, and deepen our appreciation of the show and fandom we all love, for which we say a sincere thank you!
This round proved tricky for would-be investigators (one fic evaded detection entirely -- Remembered Burning by Blue_feathered_corvus managed to fool all the guesses), but some were still able to suss out deep-hidden hints and canny clues that lead them to the truth!
Reigning champion @melivian dug deep into the fics (and assembled another spreadsheet or two, we hear) and successfully defended her title as the most successful guesser for 3MA! Huge congratulations to her for guessing correctly on 83% of fics, unmasking the authors of an incredible 34 fics 🎉
In second place was Lee, who correctly identified 22% of 3MA fics’ authors, followed closely by @destinyandcoins, who came third with 20% correct!
Congratulations to our top guessers -- enjoy your well-earned bragging rights!
Over the next week, we will be reblogging all fics that were promoted through tumblr with the name of the author, along with statistics such as the top guess and % guessed correctly.
You can now submit your guesses for 3MA [HERE]!
Guessing is open to everyone - you don’t need to have written a fic (or have read 100% of the fics) to take part in the guessing!
You can read the 3MA fics (and mine them for clues!) on AO3 [HERE]
A couple things to keep in mind
As always, if you have any additional questions feel free to shoot us an ask or reach out to any of the organizers directly!
Dont forget the ballots close TODAY!
Throw down some carefully considered guesses, or do a completely wild j'accuse - it’s up to you!
Not read all the fics? No problem! Each fics summary is included in the ballot, throw down a random guess based on the ~vibes~. It’s a multiple choice guessing game so you have approximately 1 in 31 chance of being right!
the more ballots we get the more interesting our stats look, so come on, have a go! We don’t disclose anybody’s guesses, so you’ve nothing to lose 🥳
Thank you to everyone who submitted guesses. We will reveal the results this Sunday, July 31st, so stay tuned!
You can now submit your guesses for 3MA [HERE]!
Guessing is open to everyone - you don’t need to have written a fic (or have read 100% of the fics) to take part in the guessing!
You can read the 3MA fics (and mine them for clues!) on AO3 [HERE]
A couple things to keep in mind
As always, if you have any additional questions feel free to shoot us an ask or reach out to any of the organizers directly!
You can now submit your guesses for 3MA [HERE]!
Guessing is open to everyone - you don’t need to have written a fic (or have read 100% of the fics) to take part in the guessing!
You can read the 3MA fics (and mine them for clues!) on AO3 [HERE]
A couple things to keep in mind
As always, if you have any additional questions feel free to shoot us an ask or reach out to any of the organizers directly!
