Welcome to the Shadows, darlings

this company is so frustratingly misleading. They did not bring back the direwolf (Aenocyon dirus). They modified a modern grey wolf (Canis lupus) into having some direwolf morphology. There has been no de-extinction. This is pure hype slop. As a friend said "these are dire wolves the same way La Croix is a fruit".

I still think this tech has the potential to be helpful in a conservation context.... but it says a A LOT that these "dire wolves" look far more like something you'd see in Game of Thrones than any of the most likely reconstructions proposed by scientists who've studied the fossil record.

These pups might get more robust as they age, but right now I'm not seeing anything to get excited about. I just can't help but suspect that this species was chosen specifically bc the public already has the idea of "dire wolf = gray wolf + big", and that this company is using relatively minor CRISPR editing to give the false impression that they're recreating anything that might have conceivably lived 10,000 years ago.

Again, I think this tech is interesting and merits further development (and if jurassic park is the only way they can do that, then, I guess that's what's happening), but it's still extremely misleading to parade these animals around like they've actually 100% cloned a dire wolf.

Really reminds me of Jurassic Park. In the books, Crichton made it very clear that they didn't actually clone dinosaurs. They just combined DNA to make an animal that looked like what people EXPECT a dinosaur to look like, because it turned out that actual cloned dinosaurs were really quite dull and spent most of their time hiding.

Aencyon dirus isn't closely related to modern wolves at all either so it doesn't make any sense to start with a gray wolf. (According to wikipedia they were isolated from the gray wolf lineage for over 5 million years.) we thought they were in genus Canis but turns out it was just convergent evolution and they are a whole other thing

now that I actually read the article, I realize that the lede was buried-- they genetically modified this wolf, and they also cloned 4 critically endangered red wolves

I think the TIME article is really irresponsible in acting like the pups are dire wolves when they don't contain any dire wolf DNA. The "dire wolf" pups are literally just gray wolve engineered to look more like the creatures on Game of Thrones (literally--one of the pups is named Khaleesi)

I remain cautiously optimistic though, because it seems like they are doing actually useful research for preserving existing animals and then putting a Jurassic Park type spin on it for the media.

The Dire wolf thing honestly might just be an attention-grabber to get money off of people that know nothing about ecosystems, and the red wolf might be the actual real purpose of the research. If they've figured out the genetic basis of body size and certain "wolfy" behaviors in wolves, they could make it possible to bring coyote-red wolf hybrids into the red wolf breeding pool without sacrificing the wolf traits

Y'all, just think about guys like Elon Musk. Rich tech bros with a 5 yr old boy's idea of what is cool. This stuff is perfectly calibrated to siphon off some of those techbro's billions, while on the side, being helpful to conservation

Just look at the traits of the altered pups that are highlighted in the article: snout, jaw and limb thickness and heaviness, vocalizations, body size. All key traits that separate red wolves and coyotes.

Here's what the article says:

They're using this technology to bring genetic diversity from red wolf/coyote hybrids back into the red wolf gene pool. As soon as I read "red wolves" I suspected this might be what was happening, and I was right. This could help fix the genetic bottleneck in red wolves and make a real chance for the species to actually return.

this approach is honestly genius

It's like those researchers who have made huge strides in lake ecology with funding they get by "searching for the Loch Ness Monster"

yup exactly

just a quick search of this Bridgett vonHoldt demonstrates that she is a BIG DEAL in the world of canine evolution and genomics. she's worked on groundbreaking publications that have hundreds of citations in some of the most renowned scientific journals. She's the real deal.

whether Colossal is serious and knowledgeable or not, they're working with people who are.

There's a lot of furious people in the notes who clearly did not read the article because they are yelling "THEY COULD BE USING THIS TECHNOLOGY TO SAVE CRITICALLY ENDANGERED RED WOLVES"

Well you see, that's exactly what they're doing

I'm not happy with the confusion caused by calling the modified gray wolf a dire wolf, it further obscures what dire wolves actually were with Game of thrones pop culture bullshit. But I think that it's a solid strategy for sucking up the money of rich idiots who wouldnt otherwise care about animals

sword lesbian this, sword lesbian that, will anyone spare a thought for bow and arrow lesbians in these melee fighting times

me (a lesbian) pulls out my bow, notches an arrow, winks at my lady love and says “the only thing straight about me is my shooting” before skewering the sheriff of nottingham 

#a banner unfurls from the shaft that just says: gay rights!

god keep ur fucking kink meme shit out of ao3 tag y'all make this fandom even more insufferable than it already is and thats saying something!!! The kind of shit y'all post require a fucking trigger warning it doesnt belong in a safe space

Hello! I see there’s been some confusion! Allow me to clear something up: AO3 is not a safe space.

Let me repeat that. Archive Of Our Own is not a safe space, not in the way you mean it.

From the AO3 Terms of Service:

Why does the Archive have a goal of maximum inclusiveness?

What kind of content do you allow?

The ratings/warnings policy is really minimal. Why is this?

The stated desires/goals when AO3 was conceived and initially developed can be found here, on a livejournal post from @astolat (founder of VidCon, Yuletide, and AO3, and all around fannish legend). In short, the goal was “allowing ANYTHING – het, slash, RPF, chan, kink, highly adult.” 

And that, in fact, is precisely what AO3 hosts. You see, AO3 is a safe space for fanfiction. It’s a safe space for people to explore all kinds of fannish content without fear of banning, deletion, or legal reprisal. It was founded, designed, and developed to be a safe space for fandom and fannish works.

There also seems to be some confusion about the nature of safe spaces vs. trigger warnings. A fannish work that merits a trigger warning isn’t something that doesn’t belong in a safe space. The trigger warning is what MAKES something a safe space despite the presence of fannish works that merit warnings.

Something else to consider: there are many other things that include het, slash, RPF, chan, kink, and highly adult material, in addition to incest, pedophilia, infanticide, necrophilia, rape, bestiality, sadism and violence, adultery, and all manner of other things. 

So holding individual women (because that’s what fandom primarily is, women exploring their sexuality in a safe forum filled with other women doing the same) accountable for their fictional exploration of things that a) exist in real life in genuinely damaging forms, b) have significant impact on women themselves, thus leading in some part to the urge to explore those things safely, and c) have existing in movies, television, popular culture, the Bible, and in all of literature since literature began? Well, that’s just an extension of the same culture that polices women’s sexuality in the first place and drives them to find safe ways to explore it.

Ding ding ding we have a winner 🙌🏼

AO3 was pretty much meant to be a safe space …  FOR WRITERS.

FOR WRITERS TO POST PRETTY MUCH ANYTHING AS LONG AS IT IS ADEQUATELY WARNED FOR AND MEETS THEIR CLEARLY POSTED CRITERIA.

IT LITERALLY EXISTS TO PROTECT FANWORKS FROM BEING CENSORED, THREATENED BY LAWYERS, OR TAKEN DOWN OR ALTERED AGAINST THE WRITER’S WILL. THIS APPLIES TO ALL WORKS THAT MEET ITS TOS. ALL OF THEM. YES, INCLUDING AND ESPECIALLY THAT REALLY ICKY ONE.

THAT IS LITERALLY ITS PURPOSE FROM THE VERY BEGINNING. IT WILL NOT CHANGE ITS PURPOSE AND SUDDENLY DECIDE SOME KINDS OF CENSORSHIP ARE OKAY NOW BECAUSE SOME PEOPLE YELL.

If this makes anyone personally uncomfortable, there’s a very easy way to avoid that. Just don’t use AO3. Problem solved.

I guess I should be glad that we have built a world where young fans can be so deeply ignorant of fannish history that they think that the mechanism of repression they’re invoking wasn’t originally built and used to silence them, and so easily could be again.  Their assumption is that they are entitled to have fandom feel comfortable and safe for them; it literally does not occur to them that within their own short lifespans you had to have separate and sometimes secret lists and archives for slash because “nobody wants to see that” and “it’s gross/against God’s will” and “what if the children see it!!!”  (I remember a man knitter having to quit the freaking knitlist because he took such shit just for referring to his partner as “DH/DB” (dear husband/boyfriend) the way the women knitters did theirs.)  And even within the slash community…the very first Smallville slash mailing list tried to ban strong language and graphic content.  A rebel splinter had to break off and found ClarkLex to publish all kinds of stories.  That was only in 2001!  

I know it’s a good thing that we’re now in a world where indignant young people have no idea how vulnerable they historically have been and still are in this particular context.  The time before: that was worse, for many people.  But it’s still very tiring to see.

Please, indignant young people, do start up your own archives where the Problematic Content is banned.  You’ll be setting each other on fire within the year over just where the line is to be drawn.  And advancing your actual cause not at all. 

AO3 is big and easy to use and I have seen some fucked up shit there.

Fandom is becoming mainstream. We need to reconsider if “because you CAN write it, no other reason necessary” is a good philosophy these days. It may be that AO3 needs to reconsider its philosophy and possibly change.

Excuse me? What’s wrong with writing something “because I can”? What other philosophy do you want us to adopt? Let’s see if this fits mainstream criteria of normalcy, of “good” and “moral”?  And the answer to that is: NO. A huge big NO. This is why AO3 was created after LJ strikethrough in 2007 - because we wanted a space where it didn’t matter how weird or kinky or fucked up a story is. Where it didn’t matter that it’s not mainstream. Where we wouldn’t be judged, nobody could delete our stuff and nobody could try holding us legally accountable simply for writing something that’s not to their tastes (as long as there is no actually illegal material). 

Why would they “need” to do that? For what reason? AO3 is precisely what we need - apparently now not only to ward off attacks from outside fandom as it used to be, but from inside fandom as well.

“It may be that AO3 needs to reconsider its philosophy and possibly change.”

NO. Ao3 doesn’t *need* to do a damn thing. If you (and plenty of other people, evidently) think that fandom needs a more mainstream, sanitized space/archive go ahead and make it happen, the source codes are out there (and good luck deciding about how clean is clean enough).

I have seen this exact response given over and over again -make your own space, go on and do it yourselves- and it’s always ignored or treated like a dismissal. It’s NOT a dismissal, this is how everything in fandom gets created. This is how ao3 was created: a bunch of people wanted it enough to make it happen. We donated money, time and workto make it happen. And the folks at ao3 did such a good job that the result is now the biggest and most well known fandom archive. But it was born from a bunch of people who wanted to give fanfics a safe space and were willing to work for it.

Every time I see people huffing and ignoring the perfectly logical suggestion to “get together and create the fandom space that you want” I can’t help but think that they just don’t care enough about their ideas to be willing to put in the work (and if so, why should we care enough to do their work for them?) or worse, are just in it for the joy of policing and shaming others

THIS.

We didn’t like how it was done elsewhere, so we built AO3. You don’t like how AO3 does it? WELL GO BUILD YOUR OWN SPACE INSTEAD OF DEMANDIG AO3 TO DO AS YOU PLEASE! DAMN IT!

This entitlement is so disgusting.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

As we say in Danish, “if you don’t like the smell of the bakery, you can eat somewhere else.”

Every writing advice ever: If you’re having trouble with a scene, skip it and write a different part of the story.

Me: If I don’t write in chronological order, I will die

"Why does Group A deserve human rights if Group B doesn't have them?"

Both groups deserve human rights. That's how human rights work.

Anyone who convinces you to barter one group's rights against another is not interested in giving them to either group.

just to ease my followers

oh hell yeah you’re absolutely right

hat tip @quandoceli that’s lovely, thank you so much!

Somber (22x28 inches oil on wood, sold)

they posted a full version lol it’s mr Stacy’s dad for me

The best part of this, to me, is that according to another one of their songs (bi bi bi)… only the band’s front man is queer. The rest of them are straight, but they are fully in this with him.

GET GRUFFALO'D, BITCH

If you haven't heard of Julia Donaldson, she's primarily a picture book author, who we can thank for extremely popular Halloween classic Room on the Broom as well as the Gruffalo.

Let this be a testament to the power of picture books.

I'm living for these jokes.

Also I need "GET GRUFFALO'D, BITCH" on a T-shirt.

@theshitpostcalligrapher - this feels like prime shitpost fodder.

Hey students, here’s a pro tip: do not write an email to your prof while you’re seriously sick.

Signed, a person who somehow came up with “dear hello, I am sick and not sure if I’ll be alive to come tomorrow and I’m sorry, best slutantions, [name]”.

I mean, if someone wrote that to me, I’d probably believe they were sick.

“Slutantions” has me crying laughing

i once emailed my professor with a migraine. a mistake.

“I amsick will not to choir because i have a heache. i Hope its very and i am so sorry

love,

blue”

the subject line was “OW”

THE SUBJECT LINE IS THE BEST PART JSJFJSJDJS JUST IMAGINE GETTING AN EMAIL WITH NO CONTEXT OTHER THAN “OW”

As someone who has taught college, please send those emails because 1) We WILL believe that; no one would write that on purpose and 2) we need a laugh sometimes.

On the other side of this, once after getting taken to the ER by ambulance, I got an email from the professor whose class I’d passed out in, and the message had no text, just the subject line “you good?”

Reblogging for the last addition

Claritin makes me weird, but I have allergies so there’s about a month and a half block of time where I’m taking Claritin and am just weird most of the time.

Anyway, my last year of college, I got the flu or something in late March and was also taking Mucinex. I told my professor I couldn’t come to class one day by email except I couldnt think of what to say, so my medicated ass decided to make a Fry meme. I think it said something like “Not sure if I can go to class with a head the size of Texas, bottom text.” I didn’t think until the next day that it probably wasn’t socially-acceptable to tell your philosophy professor you weren’t coming to class via Tumblr style memes. When i got back to class, i found that she’d printed it out and taped it to the classroom bulletin board.

Oh shit you guys i turned on my WinXP laptop that I used to use back then.

IT WAS ON THE DESKTOP. THIS IS WHAT I SENT.

It’s even worse than i remember it

I laugh myself hoarse every time this post comes around, so here it is again.

Once emailed a professor from my hospital bed high on painkillers after a really bad car crash which my heart actually stopped the email “Dead cant class sory”

i was very sick over new years and one day i woke up to find i had emailed my manager in the middle of the night:

she said it was the most beautiful sick email she’s ever gotten

Once sent a relatively coherent email that started with:

“So I’m writing this from a hospital bed, right…”