#my family loves me

[allieisacrybaby]

“they don’t offer collegiate tap dance.”- mom

“so what you’re saying is that it’s got un-tapped potential?”- me

[charmingly-evil]

Sometimes I wish I had one person in this world who would drop everything to come be with me if I needed that

[dinosaurcharcuterie]

I was bored last weekend, and my brain decided the dodo is pigeons post was as good a thing as any to poke with a blunt ikea pencil for entertainment.

The nearest relative of the dodo, the nicobar pigeon, is still alive, so how hard would it be to get a modern dodo? A dodo sapiens, if you would?

Well, first of all, the nicobar pigeon is near threatened and looks pretty, so people are trying to keep it un-hunted and out of the pet trade. Zoos can breed them, but I'm pretty sure they would ban you from most zoos worldwide if you asked one to borrow their very hard to get birds for selective breeding of the "bored Internet user with a passably good grade in high school biology" kind.

So what if you take a different pigeon and try to work from there? Create a modern dodo. From a European wood pigeon, perhaps? A European wood dodo. You'd need to make it 50-75% bigger, somehow. And also get neoteny without killing its fertility or compatibility with life. But that feels... Doable? Maybe?

My skills in the subject are limited at best, but I've got a cousin who grew up in an animal loving home whose dad's love for parakeets culminated in her keeping a significant number of pigeons. She is a kindergarten teacher with a newborn child these days, so she doesn't have oodles of time, but she perked up at the mention of her sweet feather babies in my little thought experiment.

Her take: "I've not got any pigeons left that are at an age where I'm comfortable breeding them, but I don't think it'd be too-too hard. There's fancy breeds that are already quite big, but they have issues with mobility... Still worth looking into, though. Tell me if you need help sourcing some."

Not quite ready to turn my second floor apartment balcony into a pigeon coop, I turned to my other bird loving cousin, who researched the everloving crud out of optimal living circumstances for her brahma chickens. Her scientific background is a master's in psychology, and she works in various "do not get us sued, you unethical conifer of a human being" roles professionally, so I asked her how she'd go about getting a pigeon the size of her brahmas and induce neoteny.

Her plan: "If you're not starting with the right pigeon anyway, just go completely left field. See if you can cross breed whatever pigeon is readily available with, say, a brahma to speed run the size, then see if there's other birds you can get the neoteny from. Then breed selectively to fine tune the dodo-ishness."

Would this work? It seemed unlikely. It certainly would get questions from the vet if anyone tried.

So I asked my baby sister, who has two degrees in biology, but one of them is in worms and the other, somehow, in Python. The programming language, not the snake. She works in ecology, assessing what cleanup needs to happen if people want to stop having to pay pollution fines and/or make their land suitable for anything but industrial waste management. Her home is eco friendly. Her child has organic wood toys recommended by pedagogical experts. Not crunchy, not hippy, but... solarpunk accountant. How would she go about it? Make a wood pigeon big first? Or select for neoteny, so you wouldn't lose size from that?

"That takes too long. Just CRISPR that shit into activating, then troubleshoot until it's compatible with life, then see what else you need to tweak genetically to get to a dodo."

That... Felt like a big thing to do in the back yard of my thought experiment.

"You don't have a back yard. You've got a tiny balcony. And probably some strict animal hoarding laws."

I also don't have access to CRISPR.

"Eeeh, I know some people. Just talk to [pigeon cousin] first about how to take care of them."

I just want to point out, dear reader, that at no point anyone in my family questioned why anyone/I would want to recreate a dodo. I also never said I was going to, but it was just assumed I was picking it up as a casual hobby, a natural next step after my... Knitting, sewing and baking.

If questioned, they'll just say I'm the weird one in the family, but it is very important to keep in mind that absolutely nothing and no one forces them to readily and enthusiastically entertain my whimsies.

[crowkip]

yeehaw, baby!

[stargirl230]

thanks for the light

I was just trying to figure out how procreate works but then the op brainworms got to me and 35 hours later here we are! can you tell I miss home-cooked meals :')

(no reposts; reblogs appreciated)

[deyageka]

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No srsly I can’t believe they’ve actually done this:

(+)

[comics-centalx]

Dick and Jason's responses are the only correct ones

[siyaazu]

True pacifist ending.

[glassrunner]

"Sometimes, taking a leap forward means... leaving a few things behind."

POWDER IN THE UNIVERSE WITHOUT HEXTECH | ARCANE S02E07

[1alchemistart]

dont got much to offer for The Holiday but have these sillies!

happy valentines day :D

[aerequets]

(part 1)

(short comic) (you can otherwise search 'spy x pta' on my profile)

MY GOODNESS. it's been a hot minute since i posted the first part and i guess i just couldn't SHUT UP because this is FOURTEEN PAGES LONG. FOURTEEN. you can even see some pages where the linework is slightly different because i drew it like 6-ish weeks ago, that's how long this has been cooking. drawing in general has been hard lately because of time constraints, BUT i am so happy i finished this. this is like my fav project even tho it isnt as popular, but who cares!!!!! POPULAR IN MY HEART

[livelovecaliforniadreams]

#Well It All Started At The Golden Globes

[notpoet06]

I do not beget love

[jinaxxo]

the dunmeshi party if i were to be the lord of the dungeon.. just a glimpse into my dark reality..

[vistarya]

May I have this dance, Mrs Tims?

[briefhottubcoffee]

I mentioned this on Twitter, so I had to here as well. (Someone has brought this up before, tho I can’t remember where.) I love the attention to detail of the Forger kitchen in the manga. There are Bondman stickers all over the kitchen cabinets and drawers, at the perfect Anya height! 🥰

You can spot them in these panels

I think it’s so cute her parents are letting Anya make her house a home by sticking her stickers everywhere. (I was NOT allowed to do that as a kid.)

The apartment in the anime is iconic, but very sterile. It never changes. The manga apartment looks much more homey and lived in and I love the little details like these that shows a young child lives and plays there. For Agent Twilight to let her do this, the boy’s a big softie I think. I wonder what he thinks when he passes by these stickers all over his “temporary” home. ❤️