Archaeopteryx, a new beginning.

One of my favorite dinosaurs and fossils, Archaeopteryx lithographica. I hope I get to see it in person someday <3

The missing link between dinosaurs and birds, an extinct animal shedding light on such a modern matter. It has always fascinated me. The evolutionary success of so many animals, still present and alive today, coming from millions of years ago.

Even before it was found, scientists expected some animal like Archaeopteryx to have existed, so here archaeopteryx stands in the middle, glowing, as if saying "I'm here! I existed! We are still around, in stone, and in the sky!"

I am submitting this drawing to the art contest Paleoartapalooza, held by the Museum of the Rockies. Wish me luck 🤞

I hope you like it!

@archaeopter-ace

Q&A with Ashley Pharoah : about that cliffhanger...

HERE BE SPOILERS!  Continue at your own peril…

The one year anniversary for the Iplayer release of The Living And The Dead is almost upon us.  So it’s great timing that Ashley Pharoah - creator & exec producer - held an impromptu TheLivingAndTheDead Q&A on Twitter this afternoon.  Here’s a quick recap of what’s been asked & answered so far.

And yes, Ashley mistakenly refers to the estate as Chedzoy :-)

Shout out to @rocknvaughn @quiltineb  @whisperingmind1 @darasmithville @narlth, @jaqtkd Purrlin37 & everyone else fielding excellent questions.

Quiltineb : I would have loved to know the whole story. I wonder if @AJPharoah has still got this on the back burner.

Ashley : Alas, I’ve run out of options so there will be no more The Living And The Dead, so ask any questions you like.

Rockn : I hope you don’t regret saying that because I have about a million questions!

Ashley : I’ll answer a few key ones.  Always good to leave mystery, esp in ghost stories.

Rockn : Were the seance people in the end scene from the 1920′s? If so, Nathan dies young. Or was he executed for murder?

Ashley : Yes, 1920′s.  He was executed for murder and Chedzoy [sic] became a strange, tormented house.

DaraS : I had an idea that might have been the case. That breaks my heart.

Ashley : Ah, but they had a great love. [edit]

Rockn : Which wife did Nathan supposedly kill, and did he actually do it? 

Ashley : He was accused of killing Charlotte.  No, he didn’t do it.

Rockn : In relation to this…was the 2nd series meant to be sort of a ‘Nathan tries to solve the puzzle of why he’d kill his wife before he did it’?

Ashley : Sort of.  At first he tried to get on with his life but bad things start to happen - but this time to Charlotte.

Rockn : Who was speaking through Harriet in episode 5 and what did the warning mean?  [UNANSWERED currently]

Ashley : Remind me! What was the warning?

Rockn : ‘They’re coming for you. Nathan, they’re coming for you.’

Rockn : How did Olivia Appleby die? It was assumed childbirth because of the dates, but maybe not? Why does Nathan not mourn her like he did Gabriel?

Ashley : They married very young and it wasn’t a strong marriage. A mistake, really. Charlotte was the love of his life.

Rockn : Victoria didn’t want Nathan to light the Solstice fire.  A curse? One that curses them to see the dead?

Ashley : More that she doesn’t want him to stay at Chedzoy [sic].  Remember her ‘Leave my son alone!’ That was her seeing/hearing Lara in the house.

[edit]

Rockn : Explain how the car ended up in 1894 but Lara’s baby didn’t?

Ashley : Lara’s baby survived the car crash.

Whisperingmind : So if someone from modern times saved Lottie and removed her from the car, how did the car come to be in 1894? The timelines converged?   [UNANSWERED currently]

Rockn : In the original timeline (before Lara was involved in changing it), did Nathan succeed in killing himself? Did Charlotte remarry?

Ashley : There was no original timeline as the timelines merged.  So no and no.

Rockn : Also, if Nathan killed himself in original timeline, why would Gabriel even need help from Lara’s mother / Lara? [UNANSWERED, but think this is explained by AJ’s previous answer]

Rockn : About the curse : affects spouses once they become pregnant? Victoria could see ghosts & Charlotte heard crying baby and saw Lara. [UNANSWERED currently]

Khaireddin : 1. Does Nathan ever realise that Lara is/was/will be his [great] great granddaughter?  2. Why does Gabriel need Lara to look after him in the afterlife, rather than Olivia? [UNANSWERED currently]

More later…

Part The Second… 

Ashley returned the following day to answer a few more questions (and sincere thanks to intrepid reporter-on-the-scene @rocknvaughn for all the amazing questions again ;-) 

Rockn : Did Abel North’s ghost have anything to do with John’s suicide/death? Happens the morning after telling Nathan about Abel’s murder… 

Ashley : Yes, I think so. But in an imprecise way, a sense of badness descending on the farm. 

Khaireddin : Does Nathan ever realise that Lara is/was/will be his great [great] granddaughter? 

Ashley : I think he realised there was some sort of connection, that the emotional strength of their blood tie pulled the two timelines together. 

Rockn : During the hallucination scene in ep6, Nathan watches Gabriel drown. Was he reliving the event as it really happened? I guess what I’m asking is the exact circumstances behind Gabriel’s death. Did Gabriel go outside without supervision or was Nathan there? 

Ashley : Gabriel wanted to show his Dad the toy boat on the lake. Nathan got waylaid by farm stuff. 

Rockn : If the 2nd series would have been made, would we have actually seen Nathan’s ultimate fate? (As in would we have seen the trial / execution)? 

Ashley : No. Perhaps he would have escaped, maybe to America to start a new life. 

Rockn : A head canon question, if you please : in your mind, how did Charlotte meet Nathan and who chased whom? 

Ashley : They met at a society party in London. He the feted psychiatrist, she the photographer. Mutual and instant adoration. 

StillAsIAm : It might not be on TV now, but would make a fabulous book. Could that be an option? 

Ashley : Yes, I’m thinking about that. Would work well. Just finding the time! 

Let’s leave it there. Nathan & Charlotte together at the edge of the field. Sun dipping down beneath the hills. Forever. 

Reading all this just underlines what an amazing second series we’ve lost out on seeing on our TV screens. I really hope Ashley gets the chance to tell the rest of the tale in print eventually, but that ain’t gonna be anytime soon. 

Hey creative peeps in this fandom - anyone game to take up the challenge laid down with this additional info and the hints of what ‘might have been’, and see where it takes you? Asking for a friend. 

Anyway, I’m going to keep the lights on in this little corner of the fandom, reblogging for as long as there’s an audience (and probably longer still). 

 Xx

tired: mermaids are all women

wired: much like elves, merfolk are mistaken by sailors for being all women because they have long hair and are very pretty

inspired: merfolk actually have very different concepts of gender to humans because they’re an entirely different species with their own unique culture

marine scientist: what’s your gender?

merperson: what’s a gender

marine scientist: like, are you a man or a woman?

merperson: i’m merfolk

marine scientist: no, like, what’s in your pants?

merperson: i don’t… wear any? i don’t have legs?

It’s a biological fact that fish do indeed change their sex to keep the male/female ratio balanced in their school population. So this fluidity actually makes more sense from a scientific standpoint than the silly idea that merfolk are born with a strictly assigned sex like humans.

Merfolk are all canonically genderfluid and we love them for that

Human: (invites merfolk friend to a boat party with their friends)

Merfolk: oh man, there are a lot of women here. Haha don’t worry guys, I got this :) *changes into a man to keep a balance because that’s culturally polite for merfolk*

Human: (spits drink) what the FUCK

OH MY GOD

So in the presence of a ship with an entirely or mostly male crew, nearby mermaids would become female to keep the balance.

IT GOES FULL CIRCLE

Dude this page is a lifesaver Google is really bad for working out the order to read them in

Any of the orange ones are good starting points

Dhxjsjxhdhshdhd I love my bf so much he just said "hey do you ever see a picture that changes your life forever" and then showed me a photo of a loaf of bread shaped like a crocodile

in case you were curious this is the photo and yes, my life has significantly changed for the better after seeing it

[Image ID: a photo of a glass display in a bakery, in which five large and exquisitely crafted crocodile-shaped loaves of bread are stacked up. End ID]

I think the picture takes place in Vietnam, from what I can parse from the "Mr. Thınh" poster in the bg. HOWEVER I would like to do small infodump on my culture.

Crocodile bread is actually very important in Batavian weddings (people of Jakarta; endonym "Betawi"). It symbolizes loyalty and strength in marriage— and traditionally, crocodiles are regarded as very patient animals (stays and waits instead of chasing prey) and it reflects how love requires patience and how it needs to come naturally. It also symbolized riches at one point, but the specific records of that are unfortunately lost to time like the proper Batavian language (thanks 300 years of colonization).

These days it's unpopular because of the rise of "modern" weddings that only have the ceremony, food, and party. Not to say that that's bad but the simple symbolic breaking of bread between the two families straight up doesn't happen often anymore and whenever a mini one (mini ones for the guests) gets sent to my house I go "oh yeah!!!! hometown culture!!!!!!!!" and then I get sad over forgetting it in the first place.

Anyway. Culture good, want more.

Oh my goodness... love really IS stored in the crocodile bread

A day in the life of someone who posts on the internet in Catalan *cue dozens of Spanish people asking "what's wrong with your mouth", ordering him to speak in Spanish or "in Christian", saying he's rude for speaking in Catalan, calling him "polaco" (derogatory Spanish word to mean a Catalan person), calling the Catalan language a dialect, saying he is possessed because he's speaking Catalan, etc*

This is a video by Sergi Mas showing some of the comments he gets on YouTube. He makes videos about mountain biking that he posts on YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram. And the first comment he got on his first YouTube video was already someone telling him he should do it in Spanish.

Some days ago, another creator who posts his videos in Catalan (Joan Sendra, find him on Instagram and TikTok) answered to a Spanish person who was complaining that it's rude to speak Catalan/Valencian on the internet instead of Spanish because then there's people who don't understand you (as if everyone in the world spoke Spanish lmao). Joan, who is tired of getting this kind of comments so often, answered: there are already endless videos and things to watch on the internet in Spanish. In fact, if you look for [the topic he was talking about in the video that this guy commented] all the videos are in Spanish except for mine. And yet you had to come to me, the one in Valencian, and tell me that I can't make a video in my language and that I can only make it in yours. If you don't like it, it's so easy to find another one!

However, it's not a matter of actually being interested in what's being said in a language they don't speak. It's about the imposition of the language they consider superior (Spanish) and telling speakers of the languages whose land Spain had occupied that they are useless and should be ashamed of existing in public. Well, we aren't. Like Sergi's video, don't let the comments disturb your macarrons.

This is EXACTLY what my friend Fran (cabrafotuda) always talks about, and WHY he does all his content in Valencian. It’s also why he’s so successful! Because Valencians want content in their own language, and watch the Castilian stuff cause it’s the only stuff out there, and not because it’s better.

“Red Fox And Magpie In Autumn” by Niko Pekonen

magpie: bet you can’t fit that whole thing in your mouth.

fox: watch me.

To all the people worried about the fox in the comments….he’s fine, just tripping balls. 😂

So the magpie is daring him to hit an entire blunt in 12 seconds. I getcha now.

have i ever shown u people my hand sofa

my prized possession is this loveseat I bought from a divorced dad who couldn’t tell me anything about it and in the years i’ve owned it i’ve never been able to find out who made it or where it came from. it’s got nails and finger creases and palm lines but they’re all kinda hard to see in this pic.

@elodieunderglass it’s not legs, but it’s got a very similar vibe

I am SICK and TIRED of seeing so much hate towards Al! Al hasn't done ANYTHING to hurt ANYONE! Al is harmless!

But I can already hear the Al haters out there!

"Al isn't original!" No shit, Sherlock! That's what we love the most about Al.

"People aren't supposed to look like that!" That sounds like a problem between you and God, and frankly, plenty of people like the way Al looks.

"Al is just too WEIRD!" Have you ever thought that you might be to NORMAL to actually appreciate Al?

I think you all need to apologize to Al right now!

APOLOGIZE TO HIM

APOLOGIZE TO WEIRD AL RIGHT NOW!

funny phrases to use when something goes wrong instead of jokingly saying "i'm going to kms":

feel free to add on

THIS ONE WINS

oh you know

What is homestuck? Is it like goncharov?

How is he his brother and biological father please

dave is his genetic offspring but was adopted as a little brother rather than a son. all things considered, it's one of the less convoluted aspects of homestuck's family tree

LESS CONVOLUTED?

don't worry about it 🙂

relevant to this blog i think

I like to think i’m allowed to be proud of this

Bowl identification:

East Fork soup bowl in either Eggshell or Panna Cotta, featuring the brass flatware available on their website; Lucky Charms.

did you just... know this??

i fucking adore how hard posts on this website spiral out of control

I dreamt i was in finland doing a survey of the plants there

Here are some plants in Finland

hello finland plants nice to meet you

people

Immortals are getting bolder