#tag time babes

[markscherz]

Meet the seven new frog species we just named after iconic Star Trek captains!

Artwork by A. Petzold, CC BY-ND 4.0

At the right time of year along rushing streams in the humid rainforests that stretch the length of Madagascar's eastern and northern mountain ridges, otherworldly trills of piercing whistles can be heard.

Are they birds? Insects? Communicator beeps? Tricorder noises?

No, they're little treefrogs!

Boophis janewayae. Photo by M. Vences, CC BY-SA 4.0

Until recently, we thought all of the populations of these little brown frogs across the island were one widespread species, Boophis marojezensis, described in 1994. But genetics in the early 2000s and 2010s showed that there were several species here, not just one.

Now my colleagues and I have shown that they are in fact eight separate species, each with unique calls!

These whistling sounds reminded us so much of Star Trek sound effects that we decided to name the seven new species after Star Trek captains: Boophis kirki, B. picardi, B. janewayae, B. siskoi, B. pikei, B. archeri, and B. burnhamae.

Photos of all new species described by Vences et al. 2024. CC BY-SA 4.0

I subtly and not-so-subtly built some Star Trek references into the paper, but probably the best one is this one:

'Finding these frogs sometimes requires considerable trekking; pursuing strange new calls, to seek out new frogs in new forests; boldly going where no herpetologist has gone before.'

— Vences et al. 2024

There’s a real sense of scientific discovery and exploration here, which we think is in the spirit of Star Trek.

Of course, it doesn't hurt that there are at least two Trekkies amongst the authors (including yours truly). As fans of Star Trek, we are also just pleased to dedicate these new species to the characters who have inspired and entertained us over the decades.

On a personal note, this marks a milestone for me, as it means I have now described over 100 frog species! I am very pleased that the 100th is Captain Janeway's Bright-eyed Frog, Boophis janewayae (if you count them in order of appearance in the paper)—she is probably my favourite captain, and I really love Star Trek: Voyager.

You can read more about the discovery of these new species on my website! You can also read the Open Access paper published in Vertebrate Zoology here.

[lucabyte]

something about marine biology and benefits

bonus:

[anemonet]

Technoblade....

[stemmmm]

doodles i did for theseus' guide when chapter 2 was first written a month ago :3

id like to take the blame for ford being hit with the cowboy beam but it's just a more refined version of stumps original design ideas. all of the details on the outfit have a purpose! except the quartz necklace. that ones just for fun

[cobaltfluff]

I dont care that it happened you to kanji. it should have happened to ME.

[mossytrashcan]

alleged benjicot blackwood actor is MY white boy of the month!!! you go white boy!!!

[puppetwoman17]

Tag Game!

Tagged by: @wonderjanga

Last Song: The Door by Teddy Swims

Favorite color: 💜

Last book: Laat Hope by TheWasp1995

Last movie: Daddy’s Little Girls

Last tv show: Arcane

Taste bias: Sweet!🍭

Relationship status: Single

Last thing I googled: Halal Hotpot spots near me

Current obsession: Billy Batson/Captain Marvel, Arcane, FNAF

Looking Forward to: JLU comic for more Billy content, and Arcane season 2 act 2

Tagging: @delightfulwhispersgalaxy @jasontoddsguns @imagineshazamlokimight @left-hand-of-the-forbidden-one

Tag Game!

I’m a little late but that’s fine

Tagged By: @lady-ace

Last Song:

Favorite Color: Purple 💜

Last Book: Take the World by Storm by geokat on ao3 (was rereading)

Last Movie: The Venture Bros.: Radiant Is The Blood Of The Baboon Heart

Last TV Show: The Venture Bros.

Sweet/Spicy/Savory: Savory

Relationship Status: Single 🧍

Last Thing I Googled: "Wjat is it lkek to faint”

Current Obsession: Billy Batson/Shazam/Captain Marvel and The Venture Bros.

Looking Forward To: 100 percent Batman: Arkham Knight and get my doctorate.

Tagging: @helps-the-writing-brain-go, @kyxhiin, @puppetwoman17

[viminoo]

baberoe in bastogne

[bitch-a-la-mode]

If you ever want proof of the “you’re not immune to propoganda” meme I would like to tell you the story of my mother:

My mother is a first generation American who came to the US in the 80s. She was a young girl who grew up in NYC. Her parents had to seek asylum in the US for persecution. She saw what the world was like at its worst at a very young age. She was surrounded by black and brown kids, many of whom had a parent or immediate relative in jail. Her neighbors were addicts and dealers. Her parents struggled to maintain citizenship and jobs to survive in this country.

She went on to not only graduate college but get a masters degree. First in our family. She was one of the most educated people in our family for a time. We had relatives who couldn’t even read and they would actually cry at the sight of her and hearing her speak about topics.

She went on to be super progressive. She worked in the field of humanitarian law for many years. She worked with lawyers to get illegal immigrants asylum. She worked with lawyers who would get rights for prisoners. She advocated for more medical care and for progressive therapeutic techniques (such as introducing the arts) into nyc prisons. If there was a protest in Manhattan, she was there. This woman volunteered at planned parenthood. This woman would bring me to pride events as a child. This woman advocated against the invasion of Iraq post 9/11, which was a very controversial take at the time.

And then. Around 2021, she needed to have surgery and was bed bound for a couple months. She had nothing to entertain herself except what was around her bed: books, a tv, and of course, her cell phone. Practically overnight her social media feeds were flooded with extreme right wing propaganda. I have no idea how some of that content made it past the “sensors” that these apps swear they have. When I would point out this content, she would laugh and say how she “just wants to hear what they have to say”. But her feed kept getting worse.

By the time she was healed, she was a completely different person. A true 180 in personality. She’s all the “phobics” you can think of. She thinks schools are turning kids gay. She thinks fluoride in the water is poisonous. She thinks the Covid vaccine had a tracking device. She thinks libraries are communist propaganda (I’m literally a librarian lol). She thinks essentially every minority who tells a story of when they were treated badly is lying. She thinks all gay people are pedophiles. She thinks all trans people are mentally ill. She pushes religion on me and all her family/friends constantly. She doesn’t believe in climate change. She thinks the DOE should be abolished. She thinks all kids should be forced to read the Bible. She thinks abortion is a sin and anyone who does it is going to hell. She thinks girls shouldn’t go to school and should be trained solely to be wives and mothers. She thinks all “non Americans” should be deported (yes, including her own family members). I could go on.

The point is. Even with the education and upbringing, a historically progressive person in a historically progressive place can turn conservative at the blink of an eye, especially with the current technology. I have seen it before, especially with older people, but I am also seeing it with the younger generation (mainly teenagers) as well. I say this especially now because since the election results, I have seen social media on BOTH political sides get extremely conservative to the point where it’s scary. It started with little things like “trad wives” and now I see people supporting the invasion of allied nations. In these extremely unprecedented times, I truly suggest people be very careful with what they consume, because it is very easy to fall into this hole of conservatism that I am sure will lead to fascism. And AI has made things infinitely harder. As long as we remain aware and vigilant, I truly believe a large portion of the public will be able to fight back. But to do that, we have to be very careful and aware, and I hate to say it but a majority of people do not want to put in that kind of work. I mean… look at TikTok…

Anyways. I hate to say it, but I think it’s gonna get a lot worse before it gets better. I just hope “better” is actually something tolerable and hopeful. Please be aware.

[ohshinytrinketsmine]

Babe helping Charlie 'concentrate'

Pit Babe, Ep 9

[entrailseer]

[diaospuppy]

You need to get more comfortable with being touchy, so it won’t feel awkward in front of others.

[insertdisc5]

Silly little questions that have been on my mind since forever (June) but would Isabeau vouvoyer Odile? since both options (if he does or doesn’t) would be equally very funny, also who of the cast would have accents/dialects? Since from what I’ve gathered Odile isn’t from fantasy France (and speaking from experience french pronunciation can be really hard to get right) and Sif isn’t from the same area as Bonnie, Mirabel and Isabeau.

Anyways you’ve made an incredibly fun and endearing game!! and I genuinely cannot wait till it comes out on the 20th!!!! :333

my god i read your first sentence and immediately screamed YEAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! and your ask just got better as i kept reading. thank you

The Tu (informal you) VS Vous (formal you) debacle. i imagine everyone would use "vous" with Odile. Mirabelle because Older Person I Respect, Bonnie because That's A Whole Older Adult, and Sif because Everyone Else Is Doing It. Isabeau would also do it but I somehow imagine he would switch back to "tu" during certain conversations. probably when it's only the two of them he'd use "tu" all the time... apart from that, i think they'd all use "tu" with each other.

as for accents and dialects, Mirabelle and Isabeau come from the same region so they have the same accent and dialect. Bonnie is from a northern region of Vaugarde, so def a different accent and dialect (which I imagine to be somewhat close to french creole). Odile DEFINITELY has a noticeable accent, since she comes from very far away, but her Vaugardian is still close to perfect (although she doesn't always understand the smaller things). Siffrin also has a slight accent that no one can really place, hashtag little traveler things. they're all from different spots! people can definitely tell they're a diverse group, but people from all over the world come to Vaugarde, so it's not an especially uncommon sight.

[eldritchshipping]

i love having a villain f/o and a villain s/i like no were not enemies to lovers were enemies TOGETHER i sure as hell cant fix him or make him better but i can be just as bad with him and possibly make him WORSE.... evil together...

shout out to all the villains dating villains hehe

[spellbound-sphinx]

Sour Bill for like half the movie:

[thomaskong]

I did something silly….. I made QL guess who!

About a year and a half ago I had the idea for a custom ql guess who game but I had no one to play it with so I just put it to the side until I (hopefully) would. Fortunately that day came this weekend when @pondphuwin and I got to play a few rounds (they beat me 4:5 actually lmao)!

Some of the questions we asked were stuff like “is it from gmmtv,” “does your show have a branded pair,” “is there a love triangle,” “is there a debate over whether your show is a bl or not,” and more personal ones like “am I crazy over one of the main actors,” “do we have beef with the way this bl went,” “did we watch this live together,” and so on. Rlly fun stuff!

Since this is a custom guess who I had to make all the pieces manually. At first it seems fine and easy bc there’s already official posters right? But the difficulty is that almost every poster is a different size. So I figured out how to get the proper guess who face piece measurements and manually resized each poster to fit, with a slight gradient in the background where the remaining space isn’t covered by the poster. You can see those gradient bars on the top and bottom in the closeup of the last twilight piece, for example. Also it’s just really funny to hold mini posters of qls lmao (using my hand as a reference)

There’s 190 ql poster pieces in total (based on approx. how many I’d seen as of the time of printing) (yes I will add more as time goes on) and they were all put on one big google doc that covered about 10 pages and looked like this!

After I had them all set I printed them out on cardstock so they were thicker & more sturdy and then I did a lot of cutting. And since both players need the same posters I had to cut it all twice

Are there easier ways to do this? Maybe. I’m not sure. Honestly I just did whatever like this is my own gay little art project lol

Once I had them all cut and held them in my hand I felt quite proud of my work and now that I’ve actually played it I really do

Here’s just like a pic I took when we were playing a round. Since there were so many, after every round we took out the two qls we just selected and replaced them with new ones and we never ran out lmao. It took quite a bit of effort but it was totally worth it hehe