#also! assigned them species

[asmodeauxx]

merry squidmas gang, this dreadful little polycule has infested my mind as of late

[mantisgodsdomain]

Scrolling through OC ask memes is very funny sometimes because a good handful of them have questions that... we don't think apply terribly well.

Yeah, they're a bug, tattoos are a bit complicated. They can't swim because they're an insect. Their ancestry is Cricket and their blood type is green. They don't know what a car is.

[ne0nwithazero]

Every time someone he/hims Host, they get more femme

How many more feminine terms do I need to give them until people get that this TV is transgender /lh 💕😭📺

[watatsumiis]

i think its cringe that the melusines are 'all female' i think their concept of gender is well beyond what humans can understand and i love them SO much. SO MUCH.

[youredreamingofroo]

I love seeing my non-rain world mutuals reblog my rain world poll, like yes 💞 you guys don't realize some of these lizards could be annoying as dicks and your assigning the rudest and most annoying lizard to your mutual, how cute 😇 /lh /nsrs

[mysimsyuri]

mayhaps ! i have some questions ! (for any &/or all of your f/os)

O_o - What kind of virtual pet would your f/o be? A Neopet? A Webkinz? Maybe even a puffle? Which one in particular? What about you?

o.e - What would your f/o's fursona be? If they're already an anthro character, what would they look like as a human?

:o) - What or who do you think your f/o would kin?

<3 - What's the sappiest pet name you've thought of/have used for your f/o?

;^) - What does your f/o do that makes you melt? What about vice versa?

waaah hiii e :]] gonna answer 4 strong sad cuz shes been on the brain lately

O_o - see i wanna say wed be flight rising dragons just because but i was a big webkinz kid.... maybe i can assign both whos gonna stop me

ok i know were talking about strong sad here but. vampire kitten webkinz violet.

ok for strong sad im thinking one of the original grey cats, with the weird string texture and the chub <33

o.e - oooh... i assigned all the hsr characters fursonas like a month ago and i wanna say strong sad was a possum!! she might canonically have a fursona idk she feels like the kinda character to have one but. shes possum-coded 2 me (ignoring the obvious elephant joke u could make here)

heres a drawing i did on a whiteboard of her ft my fursona and cat marzi :3c

:o) - ok listen. on strong sads lament her icon would change now and then from different people/characters and id like to think thats her kinlist dfhgkjdfg the only one i remember rn is lydia deetz from the beetlejuice cartoon

<3 - im not rlly one for pet names i usually just call my fos blorbo scrungus type shit fdgjkg but uh. id prolly call strong sad like love and darling and itd make her explode (in a good way i promise)

;^) - not to be gay but... holding me so nicely :'] i like 2 think that strong sad gives rlly good hugs so shed just grab me and id go a heem heem whimper !!!! meow

cringe is dead ask game

[peapod20001]

I’d fucking LOVE to put the various designs of an oc side by side like I am so not ashamed of how they used to look and I just wanna fucking SHOW people them all the time

[reanimatestar]

whiteboard drawings <3

[image description: two images featuring drawings of the artist's original characters on a whiteboard in black marker. the first image is two drawings of giuseppe as an anthropomorphic scottish fold with doll like joints. in the first, she looks to the right with a neutral expression. in the second drawing he is scowling and gesturing with his left hand. an arrow with the caption "eyes always dilated" points to his head. claws are taped to her fingers and an arrow points to her hand with the caption "used to tape "claws" to his hands edward scissorhands style (heart)".

the second is a drawing of carxes. he is a tiefling with long curly hair tied in a low ponytail and a swirling scar on his neck. he has a broken horn, with the intact horn curved like a ram's, except where it curves upwards at the tip. carxes is facing the viewer and smiling with his head tilted to the left. /end description]

[gimmick-blog-bracket]

Now for the final round!

@hellsitegenetics

I love them

I didn't know I needed to know that the weed-smoking girlfriends post was genetically a wolf, but I did, and I do. Also puts great stuff on my dash.

it’s so fun to be scrolling unhinged posts and then boom. an organism!

so many moths‼ also, unexpected comedy with some of the matches

perfect blend of silly and informative, and makes for an excellent punchline at the end of a long post. puts creatures on my dash. literally what more could you ask for

It's a really unique blog concept and a lot of times the results are pretty funny. It's great when the sequence matches the post content too!

Creatures 👍

Finds beautiful creatures out of the mess of the hellsite

Offers finality AND gives us a creechur.

I love them. English speakers talk like moths

If this blog wins, they could run the text of the winning announcement, and determine the post's genus and species!

They're also very good about tagging the type of creature depicted in the results, so as long as you mute tags of creatures you don't want to see, it's a very fun time seeing iconic legacy posts (and new submissions) being reduced down to a string of letters and assigned a random species of fish or moth or something!

uhh it’s cool

BLAST

There are so many weird bugs in the world

Yippee!!

If, as Haldane said, God has an inordinate fondness for beetles, then surely this blog proves that Tumblr has an inordinate fondness for moths.

Top tier blog as a geneticist, I love seeing obscure organisms and MOTH

Admin got rate limited after trying to blast the bee movie

the knowledge of biology to pull this off (i have taken one biology class in my life) and also the work to find all the strings honestly deserves quite a bit of praise

This gimmick blog has it all: science, pictures of animals, interaction with the text of other peoples' posts, interesting information, and a unique and fun premise. As a biologist, I'm rooting for hellsitegenetics to reach the end and take the tournament, because it is truly a standout among gimmick blogs.

If they win, perhaps this blog too shall become a cool organism :3

@hasgavlebockenburneddownyet

What's more happy holiday cheer than cheering on the destruction of a giant straw goat?

The birds may have won 2023, but I believe in humanity's capability for arson for 2024 <3

a vote for me is a vote for arson! This message was approved by hasgavlebockenburneddownyet

gavle is SUCH a public service and holiday feature

what's more tumblr than comical destruction and holidays?

sometimes you just gotta vote with your matchsticks

Bringing a cultural staple to tumblr since 2021

Arson is so much more fun

It would be really funny and ironic if it survives the tournament

you have no idea how much joy watching the chronicling of the gavlebocken brings me every year

hasgavlebockenburneddownyet provides an essential public service

always love seeing a bit of Swedish history on my dash 'Swedish bamboo season'

the goat account is peak gimmick blog

If I don't get to beat the goat then nobody does. -pointless-achievements

Never ask Tumblr to choose between lies and arson! The winner threatens by nature to rip apart the very fabric of our DNA!

goat statues made out of straw are exciting and interesting

I wanna see things burn

the goat is an essential part of tumblr culture and the goat blog is a sacred keeper of the tumblr high holidays

watching to see if the big straw goat has burned down each year is a true delight, something I never knew existed until tumblr and the blog dedicated to it

the incredibly focused nature of @/hasgavlebockenburneddownyet is what makes their gimmick superior.

Please guys bite gavlebocken

Look, I'm Danish. I was put on this earth to annoy the Swedes and vice versa, but even I voted for @/hasgavlebockenburneddownyet

gavlebocken is also such a fun name and this blog informed be about its existence, so for that I am grateful

hasgavlebockenburneddownyet is providing a vital service! Every year, people rely on their updates regarding the fate of our most beloved Yule Goat! How could they NOT deserve the win!?

sacred anti-corporate arson

a vote for gävlebocken is a vote for anarchy!

pls vote for them they're the funniest gimmick keeping track on the funniest phenomena in recent human history, like when i look at their acc i think to myself this is what tumblr was created for

the goat is the GOAT

HASGAVLEBOCKENBURNEDDOWNYET DESERVES TO WIN, I have them on post alert for a REASON

the holiday season wouldn't be the same without them

they do important reporting. Do you look at the news and be like 'the reporters aren't doing work they're just telling you whats happening.' Have some respect for the goat news

let the weird burnt sacrificial ritual of it all appeal to you

nothing makes my December more interesting, arson should win

doesn't barge in on other peoples posts which is always a good thing in my books. not a fan when obnoxious gimmick blogs turn a decent post into a garbled mess

[avemakuta]

Thinking about minecraft languages again I fear.

We know of at least two diagetic writing systems used in the world of minecraft— enchanting table language and some form of the Roman alphabet. We know that some form of the Roman alphabet is diagetic, because it exists in the world already before the Player arrives. Whoever built the desert temples assigned significance to the letters "TNT" enough to put it on their explosives. Pictographic writing also seems to exist, based on naturally-generating chiseled blocks, but that's harder to definitively state isn't purely decorative.

Villagers also presumably use some form of writing, given that they have librarians, but whatever that writing is, it doesn't seem to be legible to the Player, since we can't read books until we write in them ourselves.

The villager/illager species definitely creates symbolic art, given the use of banners by the illagers and of creeper face symbols on clerical robes. Piglins also use symbolic art, given the snouts carved into bastions, and it seems reasonable to conclude that they have some form of language.

This gives at least three languages in the world of minecraft— Piglin, Villager, and Desert Temple. Possibly a fourth, with Enchanting, but that could just be the writing system used by villagers, given that the Player doesn't seem to be able to read it.

What would those languages be like? What kinds of poetry are written in the Hnnngs and Hrrs of the villagers, or the grunts and snorts of the piglins? Could a piglin and a villager learn each other's languages, or are they too different not just in terms of vocabulary but in terms of the physical features required to communicate? Do piglins carry information in the flapping of their ears? Do villagers produce complex tones by resonance in their large noses?

And what about etymologies? For villagers, wool comes from sheep, but to a piglin, if wool exists at all, it's woven from strider hair. If the inhabitants of the desert temples had a word for gunpowder, was it related to their word for creeper? If piglins do, is it related to their word for ghast?

[markscherz]

I'm sorry... snake paper? Are things heating up in the snake researcher fandom?

16 February 2024: A team of researchers (including a generally well-respected anaconda expert) found minimal and partly contradictory genetic differences in green anacondas over an enormous area, summarily dismissed all previous work on the taxonomy of green anacondas, and gave the mitochondrial lineage concerned a new name, along the way making some huge fumbles that show plainly that they have no idea how taxonomy works or what certain technical terms mean. They published the work in a journal from a suspect publishing house that is known to rush, skip, or ignore peer review as and when it suits them. And apparently there was some suspicious funding involved, though I don’t know much about that. They made a media storm with ‘a new anaconda!’ but within minutes there were people raising huge red flags about the paper, for the reasons enumerated above and others.

The response from ‘the community’ has been swift and harsh, but mostly fair, in my view. The discussion on ResearchGate reflects this pretty well. There are some bad takes about keeping ‘wokism’ out of science; I would argue that it remains critical to incorporate native peoples, knowledge, and languages into taxonomic work—just not the way this was done, in flagrant and intentional conflict with the established methods and protocols. There are also responses in the discussion by the lead author that show that he is evidently impervious to all of this criticism, and stands by the belief that the work and taxonomic reasoning is sound.

19 March 2024: two papers were published simultaneously in Bionomia, that both enumerate and rebut the problems of the original paper. And I know there are more on the way, though I don’t know if they are all going to be completed now that two responses have already been published.

The one thing I would weigh in on from my perspective is that it is the *taxonomy*, and not necessarily the evidence presented in the paper, that is the biggest problem. Species are described based on mitochondrial data alone all the time. Some of the results are quite interesting. But the taxonomy of the paper is a mess, full of contradictions, cherry-picking, and terminological errors. In the hands of competent taxonomists, the work might have been much more difficult to dispute. But also, no competent taxonomist would have assigned a new name to this lineage; there are too many existing names that would have priority, if it is worth recognising.

Undoing public perception of there being a new anaconda species will take years, if it can ever really be achieved. Always easier for media stories to go around than corrections.

TL;DR big snake paper made big mistakes, and within a month was dismissed. It has probably done lasting damage to perception of anaconda diversity.

[yan-maid-cafe]

Yandere Scientist

Imagine being taken care of by a yandere scientist...

Lev was a down on his luck scientist. He had been obsessed with marine biology since he was a young boy. Researching various forms of aquatic life, it was his passion. So when he got out of college and got a job as an assistent at one of the biggest marine biology facilities in the country. Slowly climbing the ranks until he became a researcher of his own.

But he felt the passion slowly begin to die. It wasn't the deep sea expiditions and discovering long forgotten species like he had expected. Instead it was mostly busy work. Look at these scales, watch this video, go to this lecture. It was a drag. Nothing like the life he wanted for himself. And he couldn't escape it. Life felt like a drag...

He just wanted to end it all...

Than something unexpected happened. He was doing his standard report on his recent findings when he got a sudden call from one of the higher ups, the ones who rarely spoke to anybody. They told him that he was selected for a top secret project and wanted to know if he was in. His curiosity got the better him and agreed, filling out all the NDAs and paper work immediantly. What could be so important that he needed to sign all of this?

He was escorted to a new lab, being told it was where he would be staying for the forseeable future. He was confused by what assignment he had been given. But than he saw it. He saw you...

In a small holding tank was a creature he had only ever seen in myth. A large fish like tail that appeared to have been torn up with large gashes in the tail and a ripped caudal fin, all wrapped in water proof bandages. Or at least the best they could wrap it. But from the waist up was a person. They looked human, except for the scaled texture on various parts of their skin, the webbed hands, and fins in place of ears. They were scratched up there as well, with wrapped up arms and even a damaged facial fin. They were a merfolk.

One of the higher ups told him the story. How a group of fisherman went to a new area by their home to fish, but when they went to leave something had gotten caught in the propeller and when they looked again there was just a large thing of blood. They believed that you had gone to investigate the new boat only to get caught in the propeller when they went to leave. Which left your body scared and damaged. Though they had no confirmation, mainly due to the fact there seemed to be some kind of language barrier. With the merfolk only speaking in chirps and chatters, leaving them unable to get anykind of information out of you.

So that just left Lev's new job. He was meant to take care of you until your body healed while also observing you. It was a nice change of pace from the boring life he was used to, and there was something so thrilling about being on an assignment that so few people knew about. But he didn't expect thing to change so much...

There was something about you that just made him feel alive. Maybe it was your cute face or childish curiosity. There was just something there that he adored. He could spend all day watching you. Just witnessing you play with the various bath and water toys he had bought you in his off time. And he couldn't stop the ache in his heart whenever you struggled. Having to stop swimming when the pain in your tail became too much to bare, or when you're unable to control your swimming due to your damaged caudal fin leaving you to bump into the glass of the tank constantly. He just wanted to stay by you, he just wanted to care for you. You were all he had anymore...

So when he was called into a meeting with the higher ups, he was in shock. They believed you were healed as much as you could on your own, and it was time for them to step in. That some of the scientists had been making a prosthetic tail fin, something meant to replace your caudal fin. And that once you got the hang of the prosthetic they'd let you return home. He couldn't believe it.

When he got back to his lab, he threw everything on his desk to the floor. They couldn't do this to him. Not after everything you two had gone through. What did they think would happen? Did they just plan to chip you like some kind of animal and let you back out? You were almost killed once already, they were just throwing you back into the jaws of death. You hadn't even been around danger in months, almost a year. You couldn't function on your own in the cold dangerous ocean. You couldn't function without him. And he couldn't function without you either. You needed eachother, what would you do seperated?

He was snapped out of his thoughts when he looked over at the tank. How long had his hand been pressed against it? But that wasn't what he cared about, all he cared about was your webbed hand on the other side of the glass. Pressed to the same spot as his. A broken laugh spilled from his lips as he pressed he cheek against the glass, tears in his eyes as he spoke to you. Uncaring of whether you could understand him or not.

"I-I knew it. I knew you felt the same. You don't want to go back to that cold dark place. You want to stay with me too. I just know it. They won't take you away. They can't take you away. I'll take both of us out of the picture before I let them rip you out of my arms. My world. My life~..."

[mantisgodsdomain]

Our personal pet theory for Bug Fables is that names are a relatively recent development, in the grand scheme of things. Sure, they're Something To Call Someone and a Unique Identifier and so on, but they're bugs - they can already tell each other apart by scent, they don't need verbal names to write or call each other by. It's a last-hundred-years-or-so development, and one that not everyone has.

Grandpa just doesn't have a name and he doesn't intend to get one, ever.

[rebeccathenaturalist]

Xerces Society: Announcing The State Of The Bees Initiative: Our Plan To Study Every Wild Bee Species In The U.S.

This is really exciting news! For those unaware, the Xerces Society has been focusing on invertebrate conservation for over fifty years, and has pioneered a lot of the work to bring awareness to the devastating losses of not only insects but other terrestrial and aquatic invertebrates. It gets its name from the Xerces blue butterfly (Glaucopsyche xerces), the first North American butterfly driven to extinction by human activities.

Even if you haven't heard of the Xerces Society, you've probably come across various "Save the Bees!" campaigns. These frequently focus on the domesticated European honey bee (Apis mellifera), which, while it may be important to crop pollination in many parts of the world, is not a part of natural ecosystems in places like the Americas and Australia, and can be considered an invasive species at times. With the rise of colony collapse disorder (CCD) particularly after the turn of the 21st century, where entire domestic honeybee colonies would die off, the need to preserve bees began to gain wider public acknowledgement.

But what many people don't realize is that it is the thousands upon thousands of other native bee species worldwide that are in greater danger of extinction. They don't have armies of beekeepers giving them safe places to live and treating them for diseases and parasites. More importantly, where honey bees may visit a wide variety of plants, native bees often have a much narrower series of species they visit, and they are quite vulnerable to habitat loss. Most bees are not as social as honey bees and live solitary lives, unseen by the casual observer.

Invertebrates in general often suffer from a lack of conservation information, meaning that particularly vulnerable species may fly under the radar and risk going extinct without anyone realizing until it's too late. This ambitious program by the Xerces Society aims to solve that problem, at least for the 3,600+ species of bee in the United States. If they can assign a conservation status to each one, then that strengthens the argument toward protecting their wild habitats and working to increase their numbers. Hopefully it will also prompt more attention to other under-studied species that are in danger of going extinct simply because we don't know enough about them.

[incorrectbatfam]

Which TV shows or sitcoms do the Batfam guest star in?

(I'm a 2010s girlie if you can't tell)

Selina has a one-episode subplot as a prisoner in Orange Is The New Black where she acts like she's going to try and make a daring escape just to mess with everyone else

Luke appears in the background of a large gathering or party in Black-ish but the characters are too busy with the storyline to notice until the end when they realize it's legendary MMA fighter Luke Fox, except he's just there for the food

Bette would be one of the extras in The Good Place whose entire role is to give people the wrong frozen yogurt toppings while acting like the absolute nicest person who got into the "Good Place" for saving an endangered goat species

Alfred is a customer just doing his shopping amidst the Superstore chaos. He just occasionally appears throughout the episode and when they're like "You're still here?" he unfurls a comically long shopping list

Barbara appears in New Girl as an HR worker at Schmidt's place of work, where she slows him down with pointless bureaucratic procedures when he's trying to get something done quickly

Bruce would appear as a prospective business client in The Office and offers to buy Dunder Mifflin until he gets a tour of the place as it's literally going up in flames

Harper would be sitting in the back of the classroom in Community interjecting with her side commentary until the characters realize she doesn't even go there

Damian would be a student in Abbott Elementary who starts doing the teacher's jobs, and when the school tries to call home, he poses as his own guardian with a costume and voice training

Cass is a part-time cashier who gets hired on the spot at Kim's Convenience but quits after one day not because of the characters or storyline, but because she was just bored

Dick appears in Brooklyn Nine-Nine as a New Jersey police officer working an interstate case, and him and Jake competing for the spotlight and recognition can be summed up by "oh my God, there's two of them"

Jason also appears in the same Brooklyn Nine-Nine episode as the main suspect, and the whole joke is that he keeps insisting he and Dick know each other (being irl brothers) while Dick is like "I've never seen this man in my life"

Carrie guest stars in Parks and Rec as a very passionate (and very annoying) lone teenage activist with a picket sign who won't leave the characters alone until they hear out her (very valid) concerns

Cullen appears in Psych as another "psychic" racing against Shawn to solve a case, but really he just knows how to get the evidence he needs from social media faster than surveying the actual crime scene

Helena plays a substitute teacher in Derry Girls who keeps insisting that the characters do a dumb assignment that actually makes sense in the end

Tim briefly makes a cameo in Cobra Kai at one of the karate tournaments, where he plays a competitor from a dojo that's not part of the main cast

Kate appears in Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt for a minute as the characters trying to get someplace urgently, and she has a car or something they want to borrow but she's just like "uh, no, I don't know you"

Duke plays a tutor in Modern Family where the episode centers on school, and the session consists of him just trying to do his job while everyone else keeps interrupting

Steph cameos in Scrubs as a know-it-all med student who keeps trying to point out that a character is making a (harmless) mistake, only to get shut down until it happens and she's just like "that's what I was trying to tell you"

[whereserpentswalk]

Humans sometimes wonder what separates them from other races like elves and dwarves and orcs, like what makes them unique. Some people say humans are generalists, some people say we're the most adaptable. But actually there is something that stands out about us that all the other races find super weird. Humans are the only sentient creature to reproduce sexually like animals do, and because of that we're the only species with romantic or sexual attraction, and ideas like sex and gender.

Elves and dwarves create new members of their races slowly and methodically, like works of art. Harpies, angels, demons and dragons are all individually and personally created by their gods. Orcs and goblins are spawned from spawning pits on mass. Merfolk come close with how they lay and fertilize eggs, but even then any individual merfolk can both lay eggs and fertilize, and they don't meet when they do it. Vampires and other undead are spawned from other races. Fae just sort of show up.

So the idea of having sexes, and genders constructed around them, and sexual and romantic relationships is all incredibly weird for other races. Most humans don't notice it because they just naturally assign members of other races genders when they meet them.

Diffrent races have diffrent ideas around these constructs. But most of them find it some level of confusing. A lot of them just ignore it. But it's really disturbing for some, romantic relationships seem like weird bonds that can't be explained, like some sort of unexplainable and volatile connection. Sexual attraction seems like some dark animalistic instinct. Gender is incomprehensible, and also seems wrong and immoral to most races. And sex itself seem like the darkest of any reproductive ritual or magic. Because of all of this humans who don't experience some or any of these things often have an easier time connecting with other races.

This has also lead scholars to belive that humans are the only sentient race to evolve naturally. Something often thought impossible before studies on humans occurred.